On 4th December, Ebang Communication, a Hangzhou-based company, kicks off sales of 5000 units of 14nm Bitcoin miners from stock. With 6.3T/S hashrate per unit, the batch would amount to another 30P+ to the current 2,170P network as of 7th December.

The Ebit or E9 miner is based on chips developed by Ebang Communication, a NEEQ-listed company in China. The company was founded in 2010 and listed on NEEQ, the New Third Board, in china with the number: 833294 with major business scope of manufacturing, maintaining of communications equipment and accessories.

That’s the first listed company that has direct involvement with Bitcoin mining business in China. Shandong Luyitong Intelligent Electric Company (SZ:300423) attempted to acquire Jiananyunzhi Company , or better known as “Ngzhang” or “Avalon”, at the cost 3.06 billion RMB(456 million USD) this June. The 33-year old founder, Zhang Nangeng, would have cashed in around 500 million RMB if the deal was not called off. 3 month later, Luyitong terminated the acquisition due to regulation changes:

As per the newly-revised Measures for the Administration of the Material Asset Restructurings of Listed Companies (2016 Revision), we decided to cancel the acquisition to protect stakeholder’s interests.

Hu Dong, GM of Ebang Communication, told 8btc:

We used to stay behind curtain. Now we choose to exit the lurking mode and hope to bring more customer-oriented service to the market.

The E9 miners has a competitive price (858 CNY/T) with the following figures:

Hu Dong has to face the challenge from the dominant players like Bitmain or Avalon in China. Luckily, he is not alone.

Another less known producer, Lighteningasic is delivering their 16nm miners with the following specifications:

Pictures of prototype were disclosed on 8btc forum last month.

When was asked the price, Jack Liao, boss of Lighteningasic said the price would be:

800 CNY/T

Bitmain is busy delivering their R4 miner at the moment. Avalon still claims that A7 is the most reliable machine. But they need to paddle harder to deal with the new-comers.

Bitcoin price almost double within 2016 and attracts attention from the sleepless capitals. The arms race for a portion of the network seems to be endless since early 2013 with the first generation of ASIC miners. Friedcat or Bitfountain took up to over 25% of total hashrate on its peak in middle 2013 but the legend fell apart when he vanished from the public in early 2015. The mystery around Friedcat still remains unresolved.

Bitcoin mining market is the perfect battle ground for testing the guts and technology of each player. However, the entry threshold has been lifted significantly. Friedcat’s endeavor could be funded via several hundred thousands of dollars, today the initial capital input for being qualified has risen to tens of millions US dollars.

Little people knew that Ebang signed an agreement to build “Cloud Computing Center”with a municipal government in Yunnan Province, where abundant hydroelectric power is available. It could be another ideal place for mining farm besides Sichuan Province. Bitcoin mining in China is centralized and decentralized at the same time, depending on your perspective.

Despite the ongoing debate between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Unlimited, new players are always welcome to diversify the portfolio so that the ecosystem is more robust.