Despite its lack of performance, the tiny bitcoin mining rig should be seen as a stance against the bitcoin ecosystem’s alleged biggest flaw, its inventors argue.
Tiny bitcoin mining rigs—often open-source and pocket-sized—have always served a small segment of the market, offering buyers fully assembled rigs or DIY kits to solo mine Bitcoin (BTC).
Speaking to Cointelegraph, the developers behind the kits acknowledged that buyers are unlikely to see much profit, but believed it was important to combat the “secrecy and exclusivity” of the bitcoin mining industry.
BitMaker is a company that recently claim The device costs as little as $3 to manufacture and outputs 50 kilohashes per second.
A spokesperson for BitMaker, a company that has been working on micro-miners as early as June 2022, said that all known Bitcoin ASICs are closed-source, very different from Bitcoin’s source code.
This, they said, has limited the manufacture and supply of bitcoin mining machines to commercial entities.
“Bitcoin miners are arguably the most important piece of hardware in the Bitcoin ecosystem — and they’re all completely private.”
data programme 35.4% of Bitcoin hashrate comes from the United States, followed by Kazakhstan (18.1%), Russia (11.2%) and Canada (9.6%). US-based Marathon Digital, Riot Blockchain and Singapore-based Bitdeer Technologies Group are among the world’s largest mining companies.
Skot, the builder of the Bitaxe miner, has a similar sentiment, explaining to Cointelegraph that an open-source design would allow for much-needed transparency in the industry.
“The mining industry has traditionally been treated with secrecy and exclusivity. The emergence of these open source projects helps shed light on this often opaque space, making it more transparent and accessible to the public,” Skot explained.
The trend of open source ASIC mining is growing. ( look #nerd miner , @DCentralTech , @skot9000 …) again making it affordable and more decentralized. #bitcoin Every aspect is full of innovation.
You just need to know where to look.— Dimitri-H (@Dimi_h) September 1, 2023
A Bitaxe spokesperson said the engineers behind these projects are open-source documents detailing how to manufacture hashboards and other mining equipment without needing to rely on large manufacturers:
“This allows anyone interested in building their own mining rig or multiple mining rigs, thereby contributing to the decentralization of the system in some way.”
However, Scott acknowledged that buyers shouldn’t expect to make a lot of bitcoin right away. He said that while Bitaxe engineers are working to improve the efficiency of the miners, he also believes that the purpose of portable miners is not to profit:
“It’s not necessarily about profit, it’s about learning, understanding and in some cases being part of a community.”
related: How Bitcoin Mining Became a Model for Modern Industrial Loads
Scott also emphasized that portable miners are not designed to compete with commercial players in the space, but to provide people with an opportunity to run a miner at home without having to pay for bulky, overheating and expensive miners .
Based on ESP-Miner and ESP32 SoC #BitAxe & #nerd miner is a key development in Bitcoin mining.
These free and open-source projects developed by Bitcoin folks, such as @skot9000 @BitMaker_ @Public_Pool_BTC and others are laying the groundwork for the next generation #bitcoin mining hardware
⛏️ pic.twitter.com/FDBTi0PsG1— Altair Technology® ⛏️ (@altair_tech) August 30, 2023
Other small bitcoin miners on the market include the Bitmain AntRouter and Mars Lander. Meanwhile, innovators are trying to figure out how to mine bitcoin from your phone.
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