Bitmain to Launch its AntMiner E9 Despite the Ethereum Merge Edging Closer

 

Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto-mining monolith Bitmain will start selling its latest Ethereum (ETH) mining rig AntMiner E9 on Wednesday, even as Ethereum developers gear up for the blockchain’s shift to proof-of-stake (PoS).

The Chinese mining hardware manufacturer announced the news on Twitter Tuesday, detailing that E9 features a hash rate of 2,400M, along with 1,920 watts of power consumption, and power efficiency of 0.8 joules per minute.

According to Bitmain, the new mining rig is equivalent to 25 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. Sales will start at 9 am ET (15:00 CET) on Wednesday.

Bitmain had initially teased the AntMiner E9 in a YouTube video back in April 2021. However, the model that is going on sale this week is slightly more energy-efficient than what was detailed last year, consuming 0.8 joules per minute instead of the expected 0.85 joules per minute.

According to its website, the mining rig will go on sale at a price tag of USD 15,000, with an additional USD 150 for shipping.

AntMiner E9, touted as “the world’s most powerful Ethereum mining ASIC” by the company, claims to deliver USD 5,280 in profit for mining Ethereum and USD 3,960 for mining Ethereum Classic (ETC) each month.

The mining rig can also be used to mine other Ethash coins, those cryptocurrencies that use the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm employed by Ethereum. Some of these coins include ETC, Etho Protocol (ETHO), MOAC (MOAC), Halo Platform (HALO), and more.

However, the profitability of mining other coins is not very comparable to that of Ethereum, which explains why AntMiner E9 is primarily known as an Ethereum miner.

Notably, the mining rig comes to the market as the second-biggest crypto network is preparing to move away from PoW technology to PoS, in a process also referred to as The Merge, which will remove the need for miners.

While there is no specific date for The Merge, Ethereum developers expect it to be completed by the end of the year.

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