Bitcoin collapsed, what should the miners do?

Nakamoto 2025-10-13 14:37 52861人围观 BTC

Huxiu Note: With the rise of virtual currency, "mining" has become a popular industry. Simply assembled "mining machines" have become the favorite of investors, and have also set off a craze in Huaqiangbei. However, with the implementation of regulatory measures, the value of virtual currencies has become increasingly uncontrollable, and mining machines that were once popular can no longer be sold. For players in the currency circle, mining machines are a weapon to make a fortune, but for merchants, it is just a commodity. No one buys it, so they can just sell it for something else.

This article is reproduced from the public account "Interface (ID: wowjiemian)", author: Rao Wenyi, editor: Liu Fangyuan.

Wu Dong picked up the calculator on the table, his fingers jumped quickly, and he pressed a few numbers on it.

Compared with the price quoted by Jiemian News reporter when he visited the Shenzhen Huaqiangbei store a month ago, this figure has shrunk by more than 20%.

What Wu Dong reported was the selling price of Bitcoin mining machines. This modified computer host equipment is a professional production tool for Bitcoin. Several popular mining machine models currently on the market are "Antminer S9", "Antminer L3+", and "Shenma Miner M3" and so on.

Digital currencies ushered in an explosive period in 2017. Bitcoin increased 13 times in one year, and Ethereum increased 100 times. This has also led to the prosperity of many derivative fields, and the mining machine business is one of them.

Businessmen with a keen sense of smell began to scour the market for mining machines, and then resold them at increased prices to make huge profits.

As a distribution center for digital products, Huaqiangbei has also taken on new vitality. Many shops in SEG Plaza have replaced their exquisite signboards that originally read "Computer Accessories" with simple fluorescent boards marked "Mining Machines for Sale."

In its heyday, sellers from all over the world came here to buy goods, and popular mining machines were hard to find.

However, after experiencing a surge at the end of 2017, a series of negative news in the digital currency market at the beginning of 2018 also hit mining machine buyers in Huaqiangbei.

Prices plummeted

Wu Dong raised his head and saw the puzzled expression on the interface news reporter's face. He responded with a slightly embarrassed smile.

“After the Chinese New Year, the price of S9 has dropped a lot. I can’t help it, the currency price has dropped too much recently. ”What Wu Dong was referring to was the price of Bitcoin.

Last week, the Bitcoin exchange Binance said it suffered a hacker attack and a large number of accounts experienced changes. Affected by this, the price of Bitcoin fell below $10,000. The market price per Bitcoin has so far been hovering around the $9,000 price line.

The market price of mining machines also fluctuated accordingly.

On March 12, Jiemian News reporters visited several mining machine sales counters on the fourth floor of SEG Plaza and received almost unanimous answers: The price of the spot Antminer S9 is around 14,500 yuan each.

If you want the Hong Kong version, sales people generally say that the price can be even cheaper by 1,000 yuan. This is caused by the tariff difference between the two places. “However, there are not many goods now, because it is difficult to carry, it is too big, and it is easy to be caught by customs. ”said a mining equipment salesman.

“The price I am giving you now is for the last batch of goods. The next batch of goods will arrive at the end of the month, and the price will be higher by then. ”He told Jiemian News reporter.

There is no difference between the price given by Wu Dong and the "market reference price". But on February 7, when the Jiemian News reporter found him for the first time, he quickly pressed a series of numbers on the computer at hand: 19,000 yuan per unit.

“This is the price of the bare metal, with official power added 500, if you want 13, it is cheaper for you. ”A string of terms flowed fluently from his mouth.

Antminer S9 is a mining machine produced by Bitmain with a rated computing power of 13.5TH/s (±5%). According to conversion, this means that each such mining machine can bring about 0.0011 Bitcoins a day.

It is also the most mainstream mining machine on the market. Each store has written it on the most conspicuous place on the fluorescent board with colored pens.

“It mines hard currency Bitcoins. It has stable performance and simple settings. It can basically operate just by plugging it in. ”Wu Dong introduced the advantages of S9 to Jiemian News reporters like a treasure trove.

S9 is also the model with the highest demand on the market. In Wu Dong's circle of friends at the beginning of 2018, words such as "500 S9 units are ready" abound.

To deal with the influx of inquiries, sellers have developed a specialized terminology.

For example, "bare metal" refers to the mining machine itself without other accessories.； “"Official power" refers to the power accessories provided by the manufacturer ； “13” refers to the mining machine’s computing power being 13TH/s. Naturally, the lower the computing power, the fewer Bitcoins can be mined.

But after a year, the price of an S9 mining machine has dropped by about 5,000 yuan, and the market price is 14,500.

On Bitmain’s official website, an S9 mining machine with an official power supply costs 15,000 yuan, but it will only be shipped from March 20 to March 30. And this batch of goods sold out early.

This means that new mining machine sellers have no profit margin unless they rely on past stockpiling. Wu Dong told Jiemian News that his store relied on early accumulation to maintain profitability.

He recounted the "grand occasion" with excitement: "In September and October last year, an S9 sold for just over 10,000 yuan on the official website. We usually sell 30,000 yuan each, and we have to order in advance. ”

But that is a thing of the past after all. Jiemian News reporters visited Huaqiangbei and found that several mining machine shops that were open before the New Year have now changed owners.

Wu Dong said that many people saw that the market was not good during the Chinese New Year, so they came back to clear out their inventory and then stopped doing it.

“If you keep doing this, you never know when you will start losing money. ”Shortly after saying this, he posted a sales message for mining machines in his circle of friends, with slogans such as "jumping price" and "quick dump".

This is the fifth "small advertisement" he has sent to Moments in one day.

The fever has "reduced before the Spring Festival"”

The violent fluctuations in digital currency market prices and the increase in the difficulty of mining have made people's enthusiasm for buying mining machines begin to fade.

When Jiemian News reporters visited the “Mining Machine Gathering Area” on the fourth floor of SEG Plaza in Huaqiangbei two weeks before this year’s New Year, they found that many mining machine sales counters had already printed the words “Closed for the New Year” early.

The official sign posted by the mall shows that the fourth floor of SEG Plaza was originally dedicated to selling complete computer machines, accessories and other products. However, Jiemian News reporters saw that with the popularity of digital currency, more than half of the merchants on this floor have begun to engage in mining machine sales and other related businesses.

Before that, many media had reported that mining machines were “hard to find” in Huaqiangbei.

But on February 7, only about 50% of the shops on the huge floor were still open, and shops selling mining machines still accounted for the majority. However, very few customers came to consult.

In addition to the SF Express couriers who receive and deliver goods, the people wandering between stores are basically customers from foreign countries, mainly from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia.

Most of these areas are places where energy prices are relatively low. Taking Russia as an example, the country's consumer electricity price is as low as 1.3 cents (approximately RMB 0.08) per kilowatt hour, which is about 15% of the domestic domestic electricity price.

Low electricity prices have made Russia a mining powerhouse. This explains why so many Russians have become regular customers on the fourth floor of SEG Plaza, and why the Chinese names on these shop signs are often not in English, but in Russian.

“They feel that the mining machines here are cheaper than those over there and the quality is guaranteed, so they will buy a lot at one time. ”A Russian translator who had just sent away the guests told the Jiemian News reporter. She said that in the past, she had to receive four or five groups of customers a day, and they all directly requested to go to Huaqiangbei to buy mining machines. ； But on February 7, she only received two batches of customers.

These wandering foreign customers could not conceal the desolate feeling in the store that day. “The phenomena of "crowded people" and "hard to find a machine" have not appeared. More often, salespeople have a lot of free time to focus on watching an episode of TV series on their mobile phones.

“One is that many shops are closed before the Chinese New Year and there are fewer customers.； If the price of another currency falls, it will definitely have an impact, and everyone’s enthusiasm will not be so high. ”A mining machine salesman told Jiemian News reporter.

Behind the decline in Bitcoin prices is the tightening of regulations on digital currencies around the world in early February.

The Financial Times, a subsidiary of the central bank, reported that China will take a series of regulatory measures against domestic and overseas ICO and virtual currency transactions, including banning relevant commercial presence, banning and disposing of domestic and overseas virtual currency trading platform websites, etc.

The emergence of a series of bad news caused the market price of Bitcoin to fall below $6,000.

Correspondingly, the price of mining machines also fell simultaneously. The price of Antminer S9 had already dropped below 20,000 yuan per unit at that time.

This did not bring enthusiasm to the market for bargain hunting, but instead curbed the players' eagerness to move.

Just when the Jiemian News reporter walked around twice and was about to leave the store, mining machine sales Huang Li stopped the reporter. Her stall is not far from the escalator, which is considered a "prime location".

“Want a mining machine? ”She asked me eagerly, “I can give you this price. ”As she spoke, she pressed the number 18,000 on the computer, which was 1,000 yuan lower than the market price at the time.

“I go directly to the supplier to get the goods, which is cheaper than other stores. ”She said that after selling the remaining dozens of units, she was also planning to go home for the New Year.

Hopes of rebound dashed

One month after the Spring Festival, Jiemian News reporters came to Huaqiangbei again.

Although the Bitcoin market has shown certain signs of recovery, this has not brought a rebound in the popularity of mining machines.

On March 12, a reporter from Jiemian News noticed that all the shops on the fourth floor of SEG Plaza were basically open for business, but the crowds did not increase significantly compared with years ago. Even SF Express couriers appear less frequently than they did a year ago.

“The market situation was not good a year ago, and the cost of mining fell below the currency price. It hasn't gotten better after the year. Now the income from mining coins per day is less than 70 yuan, basically just getting back the original investment. ”Han Feng, a mining machine salesman, was helpless about this. He originally thought that people's enthusiasm would gradually pick up after returning from the Chinese New Year, but it backfired.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Sophie Lu previously said that according to the electricity price range set by the domestic government, as long as the market price of Bitcoin can remain above US$6,925, domestic "miners" can make money. But many people seem to have lost confidence.

Therefore, Han Feng said that he now basically doesn’t even accept orders for recycling second-hand machines. He said that when the market was good before, second-hand mining machines with good quality were sometimes more popular because they were relatively cheap.

“Now we don't dare to accept any more. It's hard to sell first-hand goods, so how can we dare to ask for second-hand goods? ”He shook his head, "Even if you were to sell us half of the goods before the New Year, we wouldn't necessarily want them. ”

Wu Dong made it clear to the Jiemian News reporter: "We will never accept second-hand mining machines now. We can only send them to WeChat for you to see if anyone needs them. ”

In his circle of friends, a sales message of second-hand mining machines showed that the price of second-hand S9 mining machines produced a year ago has dropped to around 10,000 yuan, even though these mining machines are still within the warranty period.

“New Business”: Go North

The sales of mining machines were not going well, so store owners began to make changes.

In March, on the fourth floor of SEG Plaza, many shops had written the words "Mining Machine Hosting" on the fluorescent boards in front of their counters. This was very rare years ago.

“(Consider mining) as a long-term business. ”Han Feng's store sign also has an A4 piece of paper with the word "escrow" written on it. When receiving customers who come to inquire about the resale of second-hand mobile phones, he will strongly recommend that they keep their mining machines in custody instead of selling them.

“Anyway, the current market situation is not good, and it is difficult to sell mining machines. If you sell it immediately, you won't be able to get back the money. It is better to leave it to mine until the market returns. ”He told the interface news reporter.

The "custody" he mentioned means that mining machine holders pay a certain amount of fees and let a specialized agency be responsible for the operation of the mining machine. Generally speaking, these institutions will set up special "mines" in some northern provinces to carry out custody work.

A report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that about three-quarters of Bitcoin mines are located in China, mainly concentrated in some provinces with low electricity.

Han Feng did not tell Jiemian News the specific provinces where his company’s mines are located, but only said that in the northern region, “We are taking some sites from the State Grid, and the power supply and storage space are absolutely no problem, and they can at least accommodate thousands of mining machines. ”

Some businesses also told Jiemian News that they have set up their mining farms in Malaysia, which “can accommodate more than 10,000 mining machines.” Similar to Eastern European countries, electricity costs in Southeast Asia are relatively low.

Regarding the charges for hosting services, different stores in the store also have their own ideas. Han Feng said that their store does not charge hosting fees for common models such as the Antminer S9, but only charges 0.65 yuan per kilowatt hour for electricity. Calculated, the monthly hosting fee for each mining machine is about 600 yuan.

“We are different from other stores. They also charge a little hosting fee in addition to the electricity bill, which costs a lot more money every month. ”He said that if users choose to purchase from his store and then host it directly, they can also get some discounts on the electricity bill.

However, for some relatively unpopular machines, they will still charge a certain hosting fee as appropriate. For example, for a Baikal-B model mining machine that can dig out more than 10 digital currencies, Han Feng said that in order to host this kind of mining machine, in addition to the electricity fee of 0.47 yuan per kilowatt hour, a monthly hosting fee of more than 100 yuan is required.

After choosing the hosting service, users can hand over their mining machines to these stores and let employees transport the mining machines to local mines.； You can also choose to send the mining machine to the mine yourself. Han Feng said that currently more people choose the first method because it is straightforward and saves time. "The currency price fluctuates every day, and we cannot afford to delay it for a day."

Generally speaking, it takes 3 to 4 days for the mining machine to reach its destination. During this process, and after the mining machine arrives at the local mine, safety issues are the biggest concern for users.

“We have 24-hour dedicated staff working in the local area to provide around-the-clock care. We can also monitor online and have complete fire protection and cooling facilities.； If there is any loss during transportation, our company will fully bear the user's loss. ”Han Feng reported the advantages of his own hosting business one by one, trying to calm the "doubts" of Jiemian News reporters.

Finally, Han Feng told the Jiemian News reporter that there are still 2,000 positions in the mine, and "there are those who are quick and those who are slow". However, a Jiemian News reporter discovered in his WeChat circle of friends that in the advertisement he sent out a few days ago, there were still "2,000 locations left" for the mine.

Even though salespeople like Han Feng are still trying their best to attract customers, it can be clearly seen that on the fourth floor of Huaqiang North SEG Plaza, there are far fewer people making inquiries in front of the mining machine shop than during the peak period. Most of the people who came to inquire had an observational attitude.

“If the mining machines are not easy to sell, just continue to sell computers. Graphics cards and the like are still very popular. ”Wu Dong finally said nonchalantly.

*The article is the independent opinion of the author and does not represent the position of Huxiu.com

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