philipma1957
Kasper miners Have been steadily dropping in price. Bitmain makes various models as does IceRiver. Bitmain has two current 2 models the Kas5pro and the Kas5.
The Kas5 was $25,919 per unit via kaboomracks Marketplace on June 3rd
The Kas5 is now $8,000 per unit without a coupon and $5,600 with a coupon for October delivery. These lower prices greatly rise the Difficulty as bigger companies buy and profits drop.
On the Same June 3rd day Iceriver Ks3m was sold by kaboomracks at $5,599 each. Today August 27th Iceriver lists a much more powerful model the Ks5m at $3,299
So a 6th model for $5599 and in about 3 months time a 15th model for $3,299.
This is predatory practice by the main builders of the Kasper miners. Sell at a high price build demand then flood the market with the same gear or better gear at much lower prices. All in under 6 months time actually in under 90 days time.
A bit about myself. I am an old school miner I have mined since 2012. I mined a lot of coins over the years. I was pulled into a new coin new asic trap years ago. With a $4,000 dollar asic miner that was earning $75 a day and only burning 1.4kwatts. Needless to say the difficulty rose and rose and rose price of the coin tanked and the gear was making under $2 a day in about 70 days. I think I earned back about $2200 of the $4000 invested. It was the Innosilicon S11 SiaMaster = Halong Mining DragonMint B52 miner .
No more asic traps for me as I mine BTC and scrypt. I play around a bit with a few gpu rigs for fun. I do not go for any ‘new’ great world beater asics because of this repetitive action done by asic builders. I have friends that spent $100,000 usd on 2 or 3 Kasper miners they have taken a huge beating on price. I am not sure what protection can be done for miners. A large problem is the big mines are getting in on these pop-up asic coins. Marathon is a huge farm with over 300 megawatts of gear and they added a lot of Kasper miners feeding into the frenzy.
No miner is immune to hype and it is very easy to chase new coins with a high end asic miner trying to score big profits. The last truly expensive asic miner that was a winning buy was the bitmain L7 it was a preorder in July/August of 2020 and was $13,000 usd with the Trump import tax to the USA added along with shipping it was just about $17,300 Usd and it arrived in Jan 2021. The reason this miner was a big winner was Doge spiked as it was 1 cent a coin on Jan 2 2021 and went to 70 cents a coin on May 2021. It also kept over 20 cents for all of 2021 making it the best earning asic miner in a long time. Many people recall this and try to catch lightening in a bottle time and time again. Miners need to realize that scores like the Bitmain L7 do not come a long very often. I want to help people realize that chasing after profits with expensive gear is a high risk game. Even large mines like Marathon have lost money doing this.
Mining has changed a lot since early 2012 when I first began to mine. Most mining is in large farms and commercial power rates. A small miner should not make the mistake of thinking a new hot asic miner for as much as a new car is a way to compete with large mines. I will write some articles over the next few months on what you can do on a small level more as a hobby not as a way to make a killing while mining in your home.
