Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Miner
An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is a type of circuit that has been

designed for a single specific purpose. An ASIC

miner refers to a device that uses microprocessors for the sole purpose of

"mining" digital currency. Generally, each ASIC miner is constructed to mine a

specific digital currency. So, a bitcoin ASIC miner can mine only bitcoin. One way to

think about bitcoin ASICs is as specialized bitcoin mining computers, or “bitcoin

generators," that are optimized to solve the mining algorithm.
Developing and manufacturing ASICs as mining devices is costly and complex. Because

ASICs are built especially for mining cryptocurrency, they do the job faster than less

powerful computers. ASIC chips for cryptocurrency mining have become increasingly

efficient, with the latest generation operating at around just 29.5 Joules per Terahash.
Understanding Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Miners
Instead of being general-purpose integrated circuits—like RAM chips or PC or mobile

device microprocessors—ASICs employed in cryptocurrency mining are specific integrated

circuits designed solely to maintain the bitcoin blockchain—a public shared database that

stores digital information.
Originally, bitcoin’s creator intended for bitcoin to be mined on central processing

units (CPUs)—your laptop or desktop computer. However, bitcoin ASICs surpassed both CPUs

and graphics processing units (GPUs) in terms of their reduced electricity consumption and

greater computing capacity. After first gaining traction in mid-2013 when other hardware

mining devices started hitting their bottlenecks in mining, Bitcoin ASIC miners have

retained their lead.
Bitmain Confirms Halting Its Shipment of Antminers to Chinese Customers
Bitmain, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bitcoin mining machines,

confirmed it will halt shipping Antminers to mainland China.
“From October 11, 2021, Antminer

will stop shipping to mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan),” according

to a statement from Bitmain’s official WeChat account. The move doesn’t affect Bitmain’

s overseas customers and the company said that it has increased the supply of Antbox to

speed up the construction of overseas mines.
On Sept. 28 CoinDesk cited three sources who said that Bitmain was planning to suspend

sales of its machines to miners in mainland China, after the sweeping ban on crypto

activity imposed by the country’s government.
China’s crackdown on the crypto industry has created an opportunity for the miners

outside of the region to participate in the sector, resulting in a recovery in bitcoin

network’s hashrate, or computing power, which is a key gauge of mining activity.
What's inside a WhatsMiner? Disassembling a Bitcoin ASIC
In early December of last year, mining machine

manufacturer MicroBT announced the parameters of the WhatsMiner M30 series,

indicating that the power consumption ratio of the entire series of bitcoin mining rigs

would be lower than 50W/T, which caused concern among cryptocurrency mining practitioners.

In mid-May this year, Bitcoin will usher in the third halving of its block subsidy in

history, also regarded as a critical period for the computing power of the entire Bitcoin

network. Miners are also updating their equipment for the arrival of the halving.
In the current epidemic situation, miners and people in the entire cryptocurrency

industry are in a difficult winter period. At this difficult time, MicroBT hopes to spend

the time with users and stick to their beliefs. At 10:30 p.m. EDT on April 16, 2020

MicroBT will hold the Global WhatsMiner M30 Launch Event to explain in detail the full

lineup of the M30 series products and sales strategies.
In the current epidemic situation, the online event can break the shackles of physical

space by going digital and delivering the latest news of the M30 launch efficiently. Since

MicroBT announced the news of the new product launch of the WhatsMiner M30 series, it has

aroused concern among peers in the mining and blockchain industries. Therefore, MicroBT

has also been sharing the latest news through its twitter and telegram group.
In addition to the official community, MicroBT is also accelerating the expansion and

improvement of the company's internal and external business. MicroBT is expanding in

overseas markets and improving the quality of after-sales services. It has officially

established a cooperation with HMTech which has become the first after-sales partner of

WhatsMiner in North America.

In terms of user operations, Jorden Chen, who is experienced in traditional industry

operations, serves as the COO of MicroBT, bringing mature management and operational

experience to the emerging bitcoin mining industry, which has enabled MicroBT's

business operations and customer service capacity to grow rapidly.
What Is Bitcoin Mining?
Bitcoin mining is the process by which new bitcoins are entered into circulation; it

is also the way that new transactions are confirmed by the network and a critical

component of the maintenance and development of the blockchain ledger. "Mining"

is performed using sophisticated hardware that solves an extremely complex computational

math problem. The first computer to find the solution to the problem is awarded the next

block of bitcoins and the process begins again.
Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, costly, and only sporadically rewarding.

Nonetheless, mining has a magnetic appeal for many investors interested in cryptocurrency

because of the fact that miners are rewarded for their work with crypto tokens. This may

be because entrepreneurial types see mining as pennies from heaven, like California gold

prospectors in 1849. And if you are technologically inclined, why not do it?
However, before you invest the time and equipment, read this explainer to see whether

mining is really for you. We will focus primarily on Bitcoin (throughout, we'll use

"Bitcoin" when referring to the network or the cryptocurrency as a concept, and

"bitcoin" when we're referring to a quantity of individual tokens).
A New Gold Rush
The primary draw for many mining is the prospect of being rewarded with Bitcoin. That

said, you certainly don't have to be a miner to own cryptocurrency tokens. You can

also buy cryptocurrencies using fiat currency; you can trade it on an exchange like

Bitstamp using another crypto (as an example, using Ethereum or NEO to buy Bitcoin); you

even can earn it by shopping, publishing blog posts on platforms that pay users in

cryptocurrency, or even set up interest-earning crypto accounts.
An example of a crypto blog platform is Steemit, which is kind of like Medium except

that users can reward bloggers by paying them in a proprietary cryptocurrency called

STEEM. STEEM can then be traded elsewhere for Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin reward that miners receive is an incentive that motivates people to assist

in the primary purpose of mining: to legitimize and monitor Bitcoin transactions, ensuring

their validity. Because these responsibilities are spread among many users all over the

world, Bitcoin is a "decentralized" cryptocurrency, or one that does not rely on

any central authority like a central bank or government to oversee its regulation.
Mining to Prevent Double Spend
Avalon miner is getting

paid for their work as auditors. They are doing the work of verifying the legitimacy of

Bitcoin transactions. This convention is meant to keep Bitcoin users honest and was

conceived by Bitcoin's founder, by verifying transactions, miners are helping to

prevent the "double-spending problem."
Double spending is a scenario in which a Bitcoin owner illicitly spends the same

bitcoin twice. With physical currency, this isn't an issue: once you hand someone a

$20 bill to buy a bottle of vodka, you no longer have it, so there's no danger you

could use that same $20 bill to buy lotto tickets next door. While there is the

possibility of counterfeit cash being made, it is not exactly the same as literally

spending the same dollar twice. With digital currency, however, as the Investopedia

dictionary explains, "there is a risk that the holder could make a copy of the

digital token and send it to a merchant or another party while retaining the

original."
Mining and Bitcoin Circulation
In addition to lining the pockets of miners and supporting the Bitcoin ecosystem,

mining serves another vital purpose: It is the only way to release new cryptocurrency into

circulation. In other words, miners are basically "minting" currency. For

example, as of September 2021, there were around 18.82 million bitcoins in circulation,

out of an ultimate total of 21 million.
Aside from the coins minted via the genesis block (the very first block, which was

created by founder Satoshi Nakamoto), every single one of those bitcoins came into being

because of miners. In the absence of miners, Bitcoin as a network would still exist and be

usable, but there would never be any additional bitcoin. However, because the rate of

bitcoin "mined" is reduced over time, the final bitcoin won't be circulated

until around the year 2140. This does not mean that transactions will cease to be

verified. Miners will continue to verify transactions and will be paid in fees for doing

so in order to keep the integrity of Bitcoin's network.
Aside from the short-term Bitcoin payoff, being a coin miner can give you

"voting" power when changes are proposed in the Bitcoin network protocol. This

is known as a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Protocol). In other words, miners have some degree

of influence on the decision-making process on such matters as forking.
What You Need to Mine Bitcoins
Although early on in Bitcoin's history individuals may have been able to compete

for blocks with a regular at-home personal computer, this is no longer the case. The

reason for this is that the difficulty of mining Bitcoin changes over time.
In order to ensure the smooth functioning of the blockchain and its ability to process

and verify transactions, the Bitcoin network aims to have one block produced every 10

minutes or so. However, if there are one million mining rigs competing to solve the hash

problem, they'll likely reach a solution faster than a scenario in which 10 mining

rigs are working on the same problem. For that reason, Bitcoin is designed to evaluate and

adjust the difficulty of mining every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks.1
When there is more computing power collectively working to mine for bitcoins, the

difficulty level of mining increases in order to keep block production at a stable rate.

Less computing power means the difficulty level decreases. At today's network size, a

personal computer mining for bitcoin will almost certainly find nothing.
All of this is to say that, in order to mine competitively, miners must now invest in

powerful computer equipment like a GPU (graphics processing unit) or, more realistically,

an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). These can run from $500 to the tens of

thousands. Some miners—particularly Ethereum miners—buy individual graphics cards (GPUs)

as a low-cost way to cobble together mining operations.