ChainCatcher news, the decentralized protocol Prosper announced the acquisition of over 7,000 ASIC miners from Bitmain. Prosper aims to expand its underlying Bitcoin hash rate capacity to accelerate the hash rate owned by the DAO and democratize access to institutional-grade mining.

ChainCatcher news, according to Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, there are currently about 4.43 million ASIC miners providing computational power support for the Bitcoin network, pushing the total network hash rate to a historical high.This growth mainly comes from the increase in the number of miners, rather than improvements in chip performance. Since the beginning of this year, the number of miners has increased by 826,000 units, a year-on-year growth of 23%.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, ASIC miner manufacturer Canaan has signed a procurement agreement with HIVE Digital to provide 6,500 Avalon A1566 miners, with an average hash rate of 185 TH/s. Currently, the first batch of 500 miners has been delivered and is scheduled for installation, while the remaining 6,000 will be delivered in batches from December to March 2025. As a result of this news, Canaan's Nasdaq stock (CAN) rose 38% to $1.74.It is reported that HIVE Digital has announced the commencement of a new 100 MW expansion project in Paraguay, which is expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of 2025, with a target hash rate of 12.5 EH/s and equipment efficiency of 17.6 J/TH.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, Bitmain and Hut 8 have collaborated to launch the next-generation ASIC miner U3S21EXPH. Hut 8 plans to deploy this miner through a hosting agreement of approximately 15 EH/s in the second quarter of 2025, aiming to support the custom data center infrastructure developed internally by Hut 8.It is reported that the U3S21EXPH will become Bitmain's first mass-produced U-type ASIC miner, utilizing direct liquid cooling to chip (DLC) technology.

ChainCatcher news, the F2Pool Twitter post states that with a BTC price of $54,000, ASIC miners with a power consumption of 23 W/T or higher will be in a loss situation at an electricity price of $0.07 per kWh.

ChainCatcher message, this week Bitcoin's difficulty decreased by 5% to 79.5T, marking the largest drop since the difficulty briefly fell below 80T in March. F2pool analysis suggests that only when the Bitcoin price is at $54,000 or above, ASIC miners with a power consumption of 26W/T or lower can be profitable, with an estimated profit of $0.07 per kilowatt-hour. It is important to note that electricity prices vary by region.

ChainCatcher message, according to f2pool data, the Bitcoin trading price has fallen below $58,000, causing inefficient mining machines to face challenges under the current market conditions. Based on an electricity cost of $0.08 per kWh, ASIC miners with an efficiency of less than 23 W/T are already in a loss state.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bitcoin.com, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stated that 26-year-old Bryan Thola was arrested and charged with stealing $579,000 worth of specialized integrated circuit (ASIC) Bitcoin mining machines. Local reports confirm that the man has been released from jail, and the LAPD stated that the investigation is still ongoing.

According to ChainCatcher, as reported by CoinDesk, Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream is expected to launch its dedicated integrated circuit (ASIC) miners around the third quarter of 2024. The company acquired Israeli mining manufacturer Spondoolies in 2021 and brought the core team of the manufacturer into Blockstream's mining division. In January of this year, Blockstream completed a $125 million financing round to expand its Bitcoin mining services. The new ASIC miners were initially scheduled for release in 2022, but are now expected to be launched in the second half of 2024. (CoinDesk)