Crypto mining giant Bitmain has launched two new Antminer 17 miners to the eager market on September 9. A day before the announcement, data from statistics and wallet provider Blockchain showed that Bitcoin hashrate has topped 94 EH/s to hit 100 EH/s.

Bitmain’s new miners

The two new mining models, Antminer S17e and T17e, are claimed to offer the best value of money. The S17e model delivers a hashrate of 64 TH/s and operates with a power efficiency at 45J/TH, and the more budget-friendly T17e offers a hashrate of 53TH/s and power efficiency of 55J/TH. By contrast, the new T17e model offers the same hashrate with S17 (53TH/s, power efficiency at 45J/TH) already on sale, but at a lower price offer (with T17e at $1,665, S17 at $2,727); Compared to the previously most efficient S9 models launched in 2017, the current S17 series is about 3x more efficient.

The company also introduces a compensation strategy for delivery delay. It explains that “if mining machines are not shipped after a certain period of the specified delivery date, Bitmain will compensate customers by coupons for each day of delay, based on PPS rewards of the mining pool (electricity cost deducted)”.

It seems that the company is confident about its delivery, or, it is retaining or attracting customers by coupon compensation once delivery is delayed, considering the market has been desperate for crypto mining rigs since the bitcoin rally starting from this April.

According to Bitmain’s official website, the first batch of its two new miners, expected to be delivered in the first 10 days of November, has been snapped up immediately once available for sale. Regarding this, some insiders said on social media that some big orders were placed in hundreds of million yuan, mostly from mining farms and resellers who might stock up and resell these mining rigs when the price rises.

Bitcoin hashrate boom?

To cater to the increasing market demand, bitcoin miner makers have been working hard on increasing their output. As previously reported by 8btc, Bitmain has ordered 30,000 7nm wafers from TSMC, which could output 90 million chips for about 625,000 units of 7nm miners (assuming all are Antminer S17 models). It was expected that these miners would be shipped by the end of 2019 or during the Q1-Q2 of 2020, which could increase the bitcoin network’s total hashrate by 33 EH/s.

Apart from Bitmain, other bitcoin miner makers like MicroBT and Innosilicon are also increasing the production plan on their latest and powerful miners. In August, an industry insider revealed to 8btc that MicroBT, the Whatsminer maker, has racked in 700 million yuan from miner sales in mere one week, which could buy 35,904 units of its most powerful mining machine M20S (68T). Recently, Innosilicon has also reportedly received a big order of multimillion-dollar worth miners from crypto mining farm Hashbox.

With these many mining machines ready to buzz, will the bitcoin hashrate gain more momentum to hit the milestone 100 quintillion soon? And will bitcoin price follow hashrate in bull runs? Leave your comment below.