Click here for the previous post in this series.
05-May-18:
Payment
It took me two days to complete and consider all that research from the previous post. I came to the conclusion that the risk/reward was worth it. 2 days is a serious lag on the leaders who will have been putting in their orders from day 1, hour 1. How many thousands of units will get sent out before I can plug mine in?
Paying Bitmain could on be done in BTC, LTC or BCH. I had some BCH I hadn't yet sold from the hardfork in 2017 which didn't quite cover the bill. I sent BTC to Bitmain and then swapped by BCH for BTC. This is an important consideration for new miners who may not have easy access to a range of cryptocurrencies, it takes a little time to get hold of crypto. I'd recommend using BTC as default unless you have some altcoins lying around in which case live by Gresham's law and spend them! Speaking of which, I then spent some GBP to rebalance my cryptos.
Incidentally Bitmain have a good crypto payment system. They generate an address and a timeout of 2 hours which is more generous than any other fiat pegged crypto e-commerce site I have used before. If your transaction doesn't confirm in time then they will still make good on the deal once it confirms. I paid 1 satoshi per byte on a non-segwit address, not bad! Let's update the vitals...
Mining profitability calculator results: 05-May-2018:
- ZECUSD: $305.00
- ZECBTC: ฿0.030664250143179
- BTCUSD: $9,863.08
- Difficulty: 7,747,104.38098848
- Electricity: £0.1538 kWh = $0.204 kWh
- Daily income: ZEC 0.13613958 (USD 41.17)
- Days to generate one block mining solo: 73.45 Day(s)
- Breakeven horizon: 68.72 days
| Time Frame | ZEC Coins | BTC (ZEC/BTC at 0.03066425) | USD (BTC at $9,863.08) | Power Cost (in USD) | Pool Fees (in USD) | Profit (in USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | 0.00567248 | 0.00017394 | $1.72 | $0.06 | $0.02 | $1.64 |
| Daily | 0.13613958 | 0.00417462 | $41.17 | $1.44 | $0.41 | $39.32 |
| Weekly | 0.95297703 | 0.02922233 | $288.22 | $10.08 | $2.88 | $275.26 |
| Monthly | 4.08418726 | 0.12523854 | $1,235.24 | $43.20 | $12.35 | $1,179.69 |
| Annually | 49.69094497 | 1.52373557 | $15,028.73 | $525.60 | $150.29 | $14,352.84 |
Still deceptively attractive!
It’s cost me BTC 0.22647591 so far.
16-May-18:
Bitmain drop the price of the Z9 from $1999 to $1520
This is Batch 2 - advertised as Shipping: August 24th- Sep.4th.
02-Jun-18:
Jihan Wu, CEO of Bitmain states on Twitter that a Z9 (not Z9 Mini) does exist, and is 3x-4x a Z9 Mini.
05-Jun-18:
Bitmain drop the price of the Z9 Mini from $1520 to $850 :-|
This is Batch 3
No explanation as to why, but in hindsight it may have been because they learned that Innosilicon was about to launch a more efficient miner in a couple of days. For me this just meant more even competition coming down the road.
Bitmain sent me (and other Z9 Mini buyers) coupons to calm our rages. For first batch buyers who paid $1999, we were given 2x $250 coupons, and for some reason I also got an unannounced 1x $100 coupon. Batch 2 ($1520) buyers received no coupons but double their order quantity, 2x Z9s for each Z9 already ordered. On one hand it's great that Bitmain care enough about their reputation that they compensate previous buyers, on the other the way its done can seem unfair. Batch 2 people get a good deal, they just get more stuff. Batch 1 people have to spend more money to get the effect of the coupon. coupon can't be combined and have an expiry date of 1 month. Perhaps this indicates how important it is to be early in the queue, and bitmain acknowledge this through their ‘generosity’ to second batch buyer who they know will be far less profitable than the first. I looked in to selling the coupons as Bitmain do have a facility for transferring ownership. Rates on ebay were a paltry 10% of farce face value - I imagine this is because everyone tries to sell at the same time.
I decided to find the best way to spend these things on Bitmain site. I compared all available miners not excluded by coupon restrictions and they all pretty much make less than a dollar per day at current prices, leaving the Z9 head and shoulders above the rest.
07-Jun-2018:
After a couple of days of research, Bitmain won, I'll send them more money to keep up with this losing game.
+2x Z9 Mini @ $850 each = $1700
+2x $250 coupons = -$500
+Shipping = $142.16
Total: = $1342.16
Total: = BTC 0.17437672
I'll let the $100 expire, it is worthless.
Mining profitability calculator results: 07-Jun-2018:
- ZECUSD: $236.38
- ZECBTC: ฿0.03069370
- BTCUSD: $7,706.30
- Difficulty: 9,830,426.2850098
- Electricity: £0.1538 kWh = $0.204 kWh
- Daily income: ZEC 0.10728807 (USD 25.38)
- Days to generate one block mining solo: 93.21 Day(s)
- Breakeven horizon: 114.10 days
| Time Frame | ZEC Coins | BTC (ZEC/BTC at 0.03069370) | USD (BTC at $7,706.30) | Power Cost (in USD) | Pool Fees (in USD) | Profit (in USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | 0.00447034 | 0.00013721 | $1.06 | $0.06 | $0.01 | $0.99 |
| Daily | 0.10728807 | 0.00329307 | $25.38 | $1.44 | $0.25 | $23.68 |
| Weekly | 0.75101652 | 0.02305148 | $177.64 | $10.08 | $1.78 | $165.79 |
| Monthly | 3.21864221 | 0.09879204 | $761.32 | $43.20 | $7.61 | $710.51 |
| Annually | 39.16014691 | 1.2019698 | $9,262.74 | $525.60 | $92.63 | $8,644.51 |
A slightly less rosy outlook - mainly due to the spot price falling further, but difficulty is up too. But wait, I've just tripled the size of this operation, I need to re-evaluate the position...
New hardware costs:
First order: $2702.40 (BTC 0.22647591)
Second order: $1342.16 (BTC 0.17437672)
Total: $4,044.56 (BTC 0.40085263)
Mining profitability calculator results: 07-Jun-2018:
- ZECUSD: $236.38
- ZECBTC: ฿0.03069370
- BTCUSD: $7,706.30
- Difficulty: 9,830,426.2850098
- Electricity: £0.1538 kWh = $0.204 kWh
- Daily income: ZEC 0.32186422 (USD 76.13)
- Days to generate one block mining solo: 31.07 Day(s)
- Breakeven horizon: 56.92 days
| Time Frame | ZEC Coins | BTC (ZEC/BTC at 0.03069370) | USD (BTC at $7,706.30) | Power Cost (in USD) | Pool Fees (in USD) | Profit (in USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | 0.01341101 | 0.00041163 | $3.17 | $0.18 | $0.03 | $2.96 |
| Daily | 0.32186422 | 0.0098792 | $76.13 | $4.32 | $0.76 | $71.05 |
| Weekly | 2.25304955 | 0.06915443 | $532.92 | $30.24 | $5.33 | $497.36 |
| Monthly | 9.65592664 | 0.29637612 | $2,283.96 | $129.60 | $22.84 | $2,131.52 |
| Annually | 117.4804407 | 3.6059094 | $27,788.22 | $1,576.80 | $277.88 | $25,933.54 |
Since these two batches will arrive on different dates it doesn't make much sense to combine them into one calculation, but since they all arrive after the current day’s price and difficulty values, these are indications only anyway.
07-Jun-18 (meanwhile on Twitter...):
Innosilicon announce the A9 ZMaster Equihash ASIC miner
- 50,000 sols/s
- 620 watts
- $10,000
- Shipping now! (Free postage).
😫
Z9 mini efficiency 33.333 sols/s per watt
A9 ZMaster efficiency: 80.645 sols/s per watt
x2.42 times more efficient
Though this is an expensive machine which will discourage many buyers, the proposition is far more competitive than the Z9 Minis and it is shipping now meaning buyers of the A9 get to jump the queue and get in early and thereby win the game. This is almost as bad news for Z9 miners as the Z9 was for GPU miners.
The difficult chat will start it's rise sooner than expected.
08-Jun-18:
The eagle eyed will have wondered why I didn't buy more PSUs when I bought the extra two Z9s.
Since the APW3++ is rated at 1600watts, and the Z9 Mini only 300w nominal, I deduced that I could split one PSU over three devices and save a little money.
I spoke to the good people at ParallelMiner customer support who recommended this splitter for the job (x2): https://www.parallelminer.com/product/18awg-pci-e-6pin-to-dual-8-pin-y-splitter-extension-cable-2x-62pin-cable-6in-each-side/
The APW3++ has 10 cables, while the Z9 Mini has 3 high power mining sockets and 1 low power controller socket.
I can attach the APW3++ directly to the nine mining sockets, and then using two splitter cables on the remaining line, connect it to the three controller sockets. I couldn't find any reason this wouldn't work. Fingers crossed.
22-Jun-18:
Bitmain sent shipping notification for the batch 1 order.
UPS sent notice a little later.
25-Jun-18:
UPS tried to deliver but I was out.
I called to pay the customs VAT over the phone which was easy, and to move the delivery address to one I would be at during the day tomorrow, also easy to do.
Mining profitability calculator results: 25-Jun-2018:
- ZECUSD: $175.31
- ZECBTC: ฿0.0280209
- BTCUSD: $6154.51
- Difficulty: 10,022,145.42808180
- Electricity: £0.1538 kWh = $0.204 kWh
- Daily income: ZEC 0.3157071 (USD 54.54)
- Days to generate one block mining solo: 31.67 Day(s)
- Breakeven horizon: 81.58 days
| Time Frame | ZEC Coins | BTC (ZEC/BTC at 0.02802090) | USD (BTC at $6,154.51) | Power Cost (in USD) | Pool Fees (in USD) | Profit (in USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | 0.01315446 | 0.0003686 | $2.27 | $0.18 | $0.02 | $2.07 |
| Daily | 0.3157071 | 0.0088464 | $54.45 | $4.32 | $0.54 | $49.58 |
| Weekly | 2.20994972 | 0.06192478 | $381.12 | $30.24 | $3.81 | $347.07 |
| Monthly | 9.47121309 | 0.26539191 | $1,633.36 | $129.60 | $16.33 | $1,487.42 |
| Annually | 115.2330926 | 3.22893497 | $19,872.51 | $1,576.80 | $198.73 | $18,096.99 |
I managed to install zcashd using the Binary installer, after verifying its sha256 fingerprint.
I read a news story that Zooko and team are considering adopting the Bitcoin-NG on-chain scaling mechanism which has always seemed like a reasonably good idea to me. Also this evening the overwinter hardfork was successfully deployed by the community. Nice positive news flow.
Next post: Setting up and running the Z9 for the first time, in part 3.