Bitmain (makers of the Antminer) apparently turned in more profits than Nvidia (3-4B)

[Energycore]

Here I am, back with crypto news, because of course.

 

https://cointelegraph.com/news/china-mining-co-bitmain-shows-higher-2017-profits-than-us-gpu-giant-nvidia-report-finds

 

Bitmain, the Chinese company behind the famous Antminer ASICs for Bitcoin, BCH, Litecoin and others, and an important client of TSMC during the last and current year, appears to have taken in profits on par or higher than Nvidia itself.

Quote

 

Chinese mining hardware giant Bitmain has reportedly made higher profits in 2017 than long time American graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturer Nvidia, CNBC reported Feb. 23.

 

CNBC writes that according to a report published Feb. 21 from investment research company Bernstein, the four-year-old Bitmain reportedly made between $3 and $4 billion in operating profit in 2017, whereas Nvidia, founded 24 years ago, made about $3 billion during the same period.  

 

I'm not up to date in the who-is-who of news outlets, but the main source is CNBC here, for what that's worth.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/secretive-chinese-bitcoin-mining-company-may-have-made-as-much-money-as-nvidia-last-year.html

 

There may be a calling for some monopolic activity on the side of Bitmain, as they control a very high market share

Quote

The Bernstein analysis reports that Bitmain holds 70 to 80 percent of the market for Bitcoin miners and ASIC cards, with most of the revenue made from selling the mining rigs, “and, to a much lesser extent, by collecting management fees from the mining pools it operates and renting out the mining power of its mining farms through cloud services."

 

The rising price of BTC in 2017 especially has also contributed to Bitmain’s profits, for the Bernstein report writes that, "Bitmain shrewdly adjusts the prices of miners according to bitcoin prices."

A lot of us, myself included, were hoping for something that stopped the insane shortage that we have in terms of consumer and enterprise silicon because of this demand for mining hardware. A lot of you want this to just die, whereas I was looking for non-minable currency to become the new big thing. Unfortunately it seems like we're gonna have to wait more. You damned miners, how dare you buy my silicon!

 

I'm not entirely comfortable with the place the space is in right now. Especially because of environmental concerns. I hope that in the years to come, preferably sooner rather than later, minable cryptos step down and non-minable ones like Proof-Of-Stake Cardano take over the top in terms of market cap.

[Sir Asvald]

 

 

 

[knightslugger]

10 minutes ago, Energycore said:

non-minable ones like Proof-Of-Stake Cardano take over the top in terms of market cap.

except it takes a LOT of computer horsepower to verify transactions and you NEED miners spread all over the earth to verify those transactions on the blockchain to keep it decentralized, and they aren't going to do it for free, especially when ASICs burn up 2000w an hour.

 

That being said, Bitmain has really taken it to the chops when it comes to sales of their antminers. Pangolin is selling an 11.5TH bitcoin miner for $1450 which includes a PSU. Bitmain on the other hand, last time i checked, was selling their S9 for OVER $2500 WITHOUT a PSU and ships in several months whereas pangolin is shipping next week on the m3. Their business practices are BEYOND dishonest.

[Energycore]

Just now, knightslugger said:

except it takes a LOT of computer horsepower to verify transactions and you NEED miners spread all over the earth to verify those transactions on the blockchain to keep it decentralized, and they aren't going to do it for free, especially when ASICs burn up 2000w an hour.

If you had read the link about Cardano's algorithm, you would know that it's not a minable currency, neither is Ripple, and they each represent 8 and 37 billion in market capitalization. These coins don't NEED miners, and I STRESS here, they are NOT minable. They secure their blockchain in other ways.

[manikyath]

so thats why they're selling them, instead of mining with them.

[Nicnac]

12 minutes ago, manikyath said:

so thats why they're selling them, instead of mining with them.

mind=blown

[Murasaki]

leave the gpus alone

[knightslugger]

34 minutes ago, Energycore said:

If you had read the link about Cardano's algorithm, you would know that it's not a minable currency, neither is Ripple, and they each represent 8 and 37 billion in market capitalization. These coins don't NEED miners, and I STRESS here, they are NOT minable. They secure their blockchain in other ways.

I guess this is a discussion for another topic. 

[Bcat00]

Uhh,  so it's safe to assume their profits are paid in bitcoins and etc?

 

if so then they made nothing in my books.

[Mihle]

3 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

Uhh,  so it's safe to assume their profits are paid in bitcoins and etc?

 

if so then they made nothing in my books.

No. People buy the miners with currencies like USD and CNY. So what they earn is also in those currencies.

[knightslugger]

Just now, Bcat00 said:

Uhh,  so it's safe to assume their profits are paid in bitcoins and etc?

 

if so then they made nothing in my books.

lets say you manufactured 1,000,000 units of something. the cost per unit was 1300 Yuan. 1.3B yuan. those 1,000,000 units sold at the eqivilant of 10,000 yuan each. some in usd, some in BCH, some in Yen, some in Won. at some point, all those currencies have to be converted to yuans. it doesnt really matter in the eyes of the Chinese government.

[knightslugger]

4 minutes ago, Mihle said:

No. People buy the miners with currencies like USD and CNY. So what they earn is also in those currencies.

bitmain has been accepting Crypto exclusively for antminer orders outside China for some time now. wire transfers are gone.

[RagnarokDel]

1 hour ago, knightslugger said:

except it takes a LOT of computer horsepower to verify transactions and you NEED miners spread all over the earth to verify those transactions on the blockchain to keep it decentralized, and they aren't going to do it for free, especially when ASICs burn up 2000w an hour.

 

That being said, Bitmain has really taken it to the chops when it comes to sales of their antminers. Pangolin is selling an 11.5TH bitcoin miner for $1450 which includes a PSU. Bitmain on the other hand, last time i checked, was selling their S9 for OVER $2500 WITHOUT a PSU and ships in several months whereas pangolin is shipping next week on the m3. Their business practices are BEYOND dishonest.

You dont understand how proof of Stake works.

1 hour ago, Energycore said:

If you had read the link about Cardano's algorithm, you would know that it's not a minable currency, neither is Ripple, and they each represent 8 and 37 billion in market capitalization. These coins don't NEED miners, and I STRESS here, they are NOT minable. They secure their blockchain in other ways.

Ripple is garbage, the maker can seize it.

[Cole5]

Neat, Environmental regulators need to shut down mining, wastes so much power on something that isnt useful, imagine if all those mining farms were used for folding and stuff 

[AshleyAshes]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

so thats why they're selling them, instead of mining with them.

Wanna make money during a gold rush?  Sell picks and shovels.

[Razor01]

45 minutes ago, Cole5 said:

Neat, Environmental regulators need to shut down mining, wastes so much power on something that isnt useful, imagine if all those mining farms were used for folding and stuff 

 

 

Why do you say its useless, please elaborate.  Do you know how much money Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex spend on server electricity cost to validate their transactions?  What if in the future block chain technology gets adopted by lets say Visa?  That will completely remove their need for so many servers and thus cut down power consumption over all.  Lets take this a step further, what if block chain technology replaces the current financial market tracking of stocks.

 

Its interesting that people who don't know what block chain technology really is and how it is beneficial in every day lives, say mining is bad for the environment or useless in general.  The coin is only there to incentivize the use of the block chain. 

 

The value of the coin is party based on "useless speculation" as you put it, the useless part is the speculation.  But the speculation is derived from the value of the block chain.  So its not useless its the opposite of that.

[Blademaster91]

26 minutes ago, Cole5 said:

Neat, Environmental regulators need to shut down mining, wastes so much power on something that isnt useful, imagine if all those mining farms were used for folding and stuff 

Environmental regulations wouldn't affect China from making these ASIC miners,not when they made billions from it in just a few years from a monopoly on the market without any regulation. Though yeah it's sad it seems like all the folders went to mining.

[Razor01]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

Environmental regulations wouldn't affect China from making these ASIC miners,not when they made billions from it in just a few years from a monopoly on the market. Though yeah it's sad it seems like all the folders went to mining.

 

 

Some folding has incorporated with mining.  Yes you can fold and make money on some coins.

[manikyath]

6 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Wanna make money during a gold rush?  Sell picks and shovels.

but if you're the only one that can make those picks and shovels, you can essentially be the only one capable of digging up gold.

 

that said, if selling them raises this much money, thats defenately the easier job

[ScratchCat]

3 hours ago, knightslugger said:

 ASICs burn up 2000w an hour.

Physicists cringe

1 hour ago, Razor01 said:

Why do you say its useless, please elaborate.  Do you know how much money Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex spend on server electricity cost to validate their transactions?  What if in the future block chain technology gets adopted by lets say Visa?  That will completely remove their need for so many servers and thus cut down power consumption over all.  Lets take this a step further, what if block chain technology replaces the current financial market tracking of stocks.

I doubt however that even combined these businesses use as much energy as Uzbekistan. Once the reward per block decreases enough that mining farms are not highly profitable we should see the equivalent usability while using noticeably less power.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

[The Benjamins]

4 hours ago, knightslugger said:

except it takes a LOT of computer horsepower to verify transactions and you NEED miners spread all over the earth to verify those transactions on the blockchain to keep it decentralized, and they aren't going to do it for free, especially when ASICs burn up 2000w an hour.

 

That is not true at all, a raspberry pi can handle that, it is just that the math problem that is along side with the verification is controlled to take a average of 10 min so the more people that mine the hard that gets, which drives the need of compute power. but the actual verifying part is super easy.

 

Think of it like having to be the first person to solve a rubix cube to be allow to submit your block verification. but now that so many people do it so fast the keep adding more layers to the rubix cube. (3x3x3 to 4x4x4)

 

 

The BTC test net takes a lot less to get a block.

[Energycore]

Just now, The Benjamins said:

 

That is not true at all, a raspberry pi can handle that, it is just that the math problem that is along side with the verification is controlled to take a average of 10 min so the more people that mine the hard that gets, which drives the need of compute power. but the actual verifying part is super easy.

 

Think of it like having to be the first person to solve a rubix cube to be allow to submit your block verification. but now that so many people do it so fast the keep adding more layers to the rubix cube. (3x3x3 to 4x4x4)

 

 

The BTC test net takes a lot less to get a block.

What surprises me is that BTC didn't instead just make the blocks take less time.

 

As in, actually leverage the compute power, and have smaller blocks that can be signed more easily (dynamically depending on the network hashrate), and adjust the block reward based on the number of transactions in there. Then we wouldn't have this huge problem with too much compute power being wasted, AND the network would be way faster, like, maybe as fast as centralized banking networks like Visa.

[knightslugger]

1 hour ago, ScratchCat said:

Physicists cringe

???

[The Benjamins]

8 minutes ago, Energycore said:

What surprises me is that BTC didn't instead just make the blocks take less time.

 

As in, actually leverage the compute power, and have smaller blocks that can be signed more easily (dynamically depending on the network hashrate), and adjust the block reward based on the number of transactions in there. Then we wouldn't have this huge problem with too much compute power being wasted, AND the network would be way faster, like, maybe as fast as centralized banking networks like Visa.

You don't get it the compute power has NOTHING to do with how fast the net work can run. it is effected by peoples desire to make money off of mining.

 

BTC can update to fix the block size problem which is causing the big fees but everyone (80%) must accept the changes (wallet users, miners, nodes)

 

The whole reason a lot of compute power is used is to be first at getting a block. not that it really needs that much due to BTC dynamic difficulty factor to make it a 10~ min mine time. if every miner used raspberry pis right now it would still work that same, but we would use a lot less power. but that is like asking hey only work 2 hours a day the cost of the lights is too much.

[knightslugger]

13 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

 

That is not true at all, a raspberry pi can handle that, it is just that the math problem that is along side with the verification is controlled to take a average of 10 min so the more people that mine the hard that gets, which drives the need of compute power. but the actual verifying part is super easy.

 

Think of it like having to be the first person to solve a rubix cube to be allow to submit your block verification. but now that so many people do it so fast the keep adding more layers to the rubix cube. (3x3x3 to 4x4x4)

 

 

The BTC test net takes a lot less to get a block.

while a Pi could have done the verification back in the 00's, it would take an excruciatingly long time to get a transaction completely across the network at today's needs with the same power. dare i say, it would never get across the network.

 

besides, why NOT be the one to get the block? That's kinda the whole point of mining.