Background Check ASIC Evolution: How Did ASIC History
On January 3, 2009, Bitcoin pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakomoto mined the first crypto block, known as ‘Genesis Block.’ That marked the beginning of Bitcoin mining but it was generally regarded as a leisure activity for ardent believers in the crypto project. Fast forward more than a decade later and Bitcoin mining has transformed into a multi-billion dollar industry – with Bitmain at the forefront of the revolution since 2013.
The company’s vision was clear from its inception – to take ASICs to the masses so everyone can mine cryptocurrencies. Over the years, the demand for ASICs has continued to rise tremendously with Bitmain meeting the needs and becoming the dominating force in the industry.
How BTC mining transitions from hobby to global industry
In the early days of Bitcoin, mining was easy as miners didn’t need specialized equipment, especially since there was very little competition. Regular desktop computers were enough to get the job done, provided they had reasonable specifications. Using their built-in CPU chips, the home computers were able to mine BTC at a rate of 50 per block, which translated to a few dollars profit per day.
In contrast to the above, Bitcoin mining today holds greater profit potential as reports state that miners across the globe generated five billion U.S. dollars in 2019 alone. If this stat is anything to go by, it’s that there is a growing demand for Bitcoin miners in spite of the growth volatility.
One of the first signs that the mining industry was growing was when mining became difficult due to the inability of ordinary computer CPUs to run at the speed needed to solve the computing problems. Thus, the code for mining Bitcoin with GPU was released in 2010 to improve mining efficiency.
Although the move was helpful in that it allowed the public to mine Bitcoin themselves, scaling hash rate was a major obstacle for GPU users. This led to the emergence and widespread adoption of FPGAs as a mining tool due to the fact that they had a higher power efficiency rate than GPUs.
By 2012, ASIC technology overtook FPGAs for obvious reasons. The miners had more computing power while the power consumption was relatively the same as FPGAs. Plus, the miners were custom-made to mine cryptocurrencies, so users didn’t need to worry about tweaking the field-programmable component as they did with FPGAs.
Bitmain unveils its ASIC – Antminer
In November 2013, Bitmain launched its first-generation ASIC, the Antminer S1, which boasted a hash rate of 180 GH/s. Following its success on the market, the Antminer S2 was released a few months later with even more powerful specs. Every new model from the brand continually improved on computing power and energy efficiency.
Antminers explode in sales and popularity as BTC makes history
In response to evolving market demands, Bitmain has released several models of Antminer. In fact, the company unveiled four miners in 2014 alone – S2, S3, S4, and S5. All the models featured different specs but they all shared one objective – to deliver superior mining efficiency so miners can keep up with evolving nature of the market.
Another stride of Bitmain was the creation of Antpool in 2014. It is the largest Bitcoin mining pool at the moment, demonstrating Bitmain’s commitment to decentralize the Bitcoin network by allowing miners to contribute their hashing power to a common, agreed course. Its commitment also led to the launch of BTC.com explorer, which provides information about the network. In 2016, BTC.com also launched its own pool platform.
While Bitcoin was hitting an all-time-high price run in 2017, Bitmain was equally making and releasing new variants of the Antminer S9 as well as completely new models like the Antminer T9. For 2018, the company’s lineup of miners was SHA256 models. This included the Antminer S15, which had the 7nm chip integrating over a billion transistors per unit under the hood to ensure long-term energy efficiency.
In 2019, Bitmain released the Antminer S19 series, which turned out to be its most successful model.
(Photo source: bitmain blog)
Antminer and the future of mining
Since its establishment in 2013, Bitmain has reiterated its resolve to develop new technologies that address different mining problems, making the company leaders in the industry. Today, Bitmain continues to make giant strides towards its vision of making mining available to all, which is why it is releasing new Antminer models.
Post time: Jan-30-2022