On Oct.9, the China-based crypto mining giant Bitmain launched its two latest Antminer 17 models to the eager market. On the very same day, another leading ASIC producer Canaan also rolled out its next-gen bitcoin miner A11 series.

Both new mining rigs from the top two bitcoin miner makers feature much higher hashrate and efficiency, with Bitmain’s S17+ model delivering a hashrate of 73 terahashes per second (TH/s) operating at 40 J/TH, and Canaan’s A1166 miner being capable of processing 73 TH/s with a power efficiency at 46 J/TH.

According to the announcement, Bitmain’s another new model T17+ offers a hashrate of 64 TH/s and power efficiency at 50 J/TH. As its website shows the two new models will be available for purchase on October 11 and scheduled to be shipped in the first 10 days of December. The manufacturer had already released Antminer S17e (64 TH/s, 45 J/TH) and T17e (53 TH/s, 55 J/TH) a month ago, which was snapped up in minutes once available for sale.

On the same day, Avalon maker Canaan also announced the launch of its most powerful miners – 73 TH/s A1166 operating at 46 J/T and 61 TH/s A1146 with the power consumption of 55 J/T. According to its sales director Chen Feng, the A11 models are not yet open to all at the moment, but mainly for some big buyers for fear of delivery delay; “So far, there have been about 500,000 units of A10 and A11 in want, the number is expected to surpass 1 million in 2020”. Chen added that more powerful and efficient 7nm miners and miners with more advanced 5nm process are on the way.

According to data from Asicminervalue.com, Antminer S17 Pro (53 TH/s) is currently the most profitable miner. All of Bitmain’s latest S models are in the top 10 list of the most profitable miners in the market. The rest of the competitive mining machines in the top list include Innosilicon T3+, StrongU U8 series, Whatsminer M20S and Ebit E11++.

With the introduction of more efficient 70T mining rigs, bitcoin mining may be more difficult and less profitable for individual miners amid the crypto sluggish. Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain, said at the World Digital Mining Summit that miners have to improve the efficiency of their mining equipment if the price of bitcoin stays unmoved after the halving expected to happen in May 2020.