Chinese mining giants Bitmain surprised the mining community on Wednesday with the surprise launch of a new minor cryptocurrency.

Chinese society has had a turbulent past within the cryptocurrency community, being involved in the scale debate in 2017 that saw Bitmain lean towards Bitcoin Cash support.

It seems now that Bitmain is looking to take out life from Another Virtual Currency – Siacoin

The new model of Antminer A3 will be able to extract cryptocurrencies using the Blake hashing algorithm (2b) – which currently powers Siacoin.

The model is on sale in intermittent lots for approximately $ 2,375 in an attempt to stop suppliers who place large orders from the unit. This has been a particular problem in recent months, as buyers have gathered to get their hands on Bitmin Bitcoin miners from Bitmain, as well as their miners Dash D3 and Litecoin L3 +

We are proud and pleased to announce that we are launching the Antminer A3, a new Antminer model for extracting cryptocurrencies using the Blake (2b) hashing algorithm.

The current price and the option of purchase will be available here https://t.co/mrymOaMy4i after 14:30 (January 17th, GMT + 8). pic.twitter.com/Ye0cxNn95M – BITMAIN (@BITMAINtech) January 17, 2018

The Obelisk Threatens the Soft Fork

The announcement of the launch of 39 Antminer A3 has come out of nowhere and has already caused a stir in the mining community because of its focus on the hash algorithm of Blake (2b)

In the state, the service Blockchain cloud storage Sia uses Siacoin as cryptocurrency, which is exploited with the help of Blake.

Nebulous Labs, the studio behind Sia, has launched its own ASIC cryptocurrency miners Obelisk which is in presale since 2017. Two miners are available, the cryptocurrency miner Decred DC1 and the minor Siacoin SC1 . The first batch is already out of stock and should be shipped in June of this year.

The surprise announcement of Bitmain is gaining momentum in the market before Obeelisk ships its new SC1 miners. The Chinese mining company has promised delivery within 10 days after full payment.

This did not go unnoticed, and Obelisk founder David Vorick sent a stern warning to Bitmain on the Obelisk Reddit forum.

"Bitmain has a long history of abusing coin communities, their customers and coin developers." We prepared for something like this by adding a Additional functionality to SC1 .We can make a range that slightly alters the PoW algorithm, which would invalidate the Bitmain ASICs, but would allow the SC1 units to continue running .In case of Bitmain attack, we can activate this soft fork. "

The founder of the obelisk and lead developer of Sia, known as taek, has made it clear that such a move would be a last resort to protect users who have pre-ordained obelisk miners.

"For now, I do not think it's necessary, but if they start extracting empty blocks or proving problematic for the network, having remedies that do not involve destroying the utility of SC1 units.This range would of course require community adoption, this is not something that developers might decide to do. to activate themselves It would be a UASF because the hash of the majority would not stand behind the soft fork. "

In a farewell shot, Vorick said that & # 039; A final decision on the correct course of action lies in the hands of the mining community.

"Overall, I do not think we have much to fear, but hopefully (and most likely) this soft fork will never be needed, but I wanted to remind all of world (including Bitmain) that in the end it is the community that has control, not the minors.If the ASIC manufacturers are acting in a way harmful to the network, we have

According to the Obelisk website, 3,598 SCI units were sold in the first batch of pre-orders. 1,585 units of SCI have been sold so far in the second batch of presale.

Defend the big dogs

The Bitmain, Antpool and BTC.com mining pools represent more than 29% of the world's reserves. the hash power, which according to some experts, calls into question the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. In addition, it is estimated that 70% of Bitcoin miners worldwide use Antpool equipment

Business is ruthless, and the secret launch of Antminer's A3 shows that they are trying to thwart their opponents at every turn.

Bitmain did not break the rules, but it is good to see that the obelisk is ready to stand up and make its own pre-eminent movements. But again, it is likely that the mining community will have the last word.