A new company entering the Bitcoin mining hardware industry is ready to offer a competitive alternative to Bitmain’s mining hardware, which currently dominates the mining machines market. The name of the company is Halong Mining and the miner is called DragonMint.
DragonMint 16T is equipped with all new SHA256 ASIC chips, manufactured by Halong Mining, that can produce 16 terahashes per second (TH/s) per miner.
Each machine is naturally equipped with Ethernet port and dual fans @ 6000 RPM.
The important part is that the company claims that the new miner has a nominal power consumption of 1205W (±6%) which make it 30% more energy efficient than Bitmain’s AntMiner S9, which at the moment is world’s most efficient miner and a big commercial success for Bitmain.
But don’t rush to place your orders, because DragonMint 16T is not available yet; not even for pre-ordering. Although the Halong Mining website lists a price tag of $1,595 for each machine, noting that it will accept “minimum orders of 5 units” and that “shipping begins in March 2018” on a first come, first shipped basis, the page says it is currently “out of stock”. Add to that another 120 dollars for the PSU and you’re set to mine your own bitcoins.
What’s really exciting about DragonMint though is that the project is backed by one of the most active Bitcoin Core developers, BtcDrak. This developer is also the bitcoincore.org website maintainer.
#MSGA: Make SHA256 Great Again
Talking to Bitcoin Magazine, BtcDrak revealed that he is involved in Halong Mining company, which has already invested $30 million in ASIC R&D.
"We started a mining project with the aim to bring much needed competition to the market," BtcDrak said. "We want to ‘make SHA256 great again.’"
He also noted that a first -prototype- batch of DragonMint miners have been already produced and are working, aiming for consumer release in early 2018. According to BtcDrak, the DragonMint miner “will be the most advanced miner to date”.
The company has published a video on YouTube, which shows DragonMint in action, although the power consumption seems to be north of 1450W – that’s 250W more than what is specified in the product description. Here is the video (turn off your speaker!):
Aiming to disrupt an industry which has been locked-in for a long time to Bitmain, Halong Mining will also start selling mining chips separately, in bulk.
UPDATE: The video was reportedly shot in SlushPool offices. Slush acknowledged this fact, but declared they are "not anyhow connected with Halong mining"
Public Announcement:
— Braiins (@BraiinsMining) November 23, 2017
The video that went public yesterday has been shot in our office. It's true that we have been testing this mining hardware.
At the same time, we have to clarify that we are not anyhow connected with Halong mining.
What do you think? Would you buy 5 DragonMint miners right now if you could?