In the field of ASIC mining, Antminer D3 from Bitmain has acquired perhaps the most negative reputation. This is due to the fact that when most buyers received their orders, the increased mining difficulty turned most of the D3 into pumpkins, reducing the device's daily income from $120-200 to $6-8.
Today D3 looks much more promising and interesting than at the time of release. This is due to a number of conditions under which buying an Antminer D3 can be a truly profitable move. In this article, we will look at why D3 is more relevant now than it has ever been, how quickly ASIC can recover costs and move to a stable income, as well as all the ways to improve daily profits.
Buying Antminer D3
When purchasing this device, we were guided by the insane profit that everyone's favorite WhatoMine.com calculator predicted, namely $126 per day. At that time, these figures turned many heads, and Antminer D3 could be purchased for 400,000 rubles. We took a different route and ordered devices from the Bitmain factory.
They cost us $1,450 plus delivery, which amounted to approximately 100,000 rubles, plus almost 3 months of waiting for shipment. Today Antminer D3 can be bought for 90,000 rubles in stock in Moscow. Why so cheap? We have already written in the article Antimer D3: saving drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves.
Increasing complexity of DASH
Around October, the Bitmain factory shipped a large batch of Antminer D3, plus iBelink was actively supplying its ASIC devices for the X11 algorithm. There was an oversaturation of the market, manufacturers did not calculate the volume of supplies, and the myth about the ASIC resistance of the X11 algorithm turned out to be just a myth. The difficulty of mining DASH began to skyrocket.
The worst thing is that the increase in difficulty occurred without an increase in the price of the DASH coin itself.
How to choose ASIC for mining
Key parameters to pay attention to:
- price;
- hashrate, also known as performance;
- algorithm for what coin can be mined;
- power consumption.
Based on this, we can make a preliminary conclusion about the payback of a specific ASIC in mining.
You can also look at these points:
- the ability to independently replace internal elements and perform periodic maintenance;
- noise level at maximum load;
- warranty from the manufacturer and what is included in it;
- weight;
- dimensions.
Profitability of Antminer D3
The profitability of one Antminer D3 in November fell to 3-4 dollars per day, excluding electricity. It was just a disaster; many ordered D3 for 250,000 rubles and more. People wrote petitions to Bitmain asking them to change the D3 firmware to be able to mine other algorithms, and even companies appeared that were raising money to develop alternative firmware.
Bitmain promised not to release Antminer D3 any more in the near future, and also gave coupons worth $125 to everyone who bought Anminer D3.
Coupons can be used to purchase any equipment on the Bitmain website.
Prices for Antminer D3 available in Moscow dropped to 70,000 rubles, which was cheaper than buying at the factory, but there was no demand. The situation changed in December, more on that later.
Setting up Anminer D3
We turned on our 10 Antminer D3 on the 10th of December.
Setup is, as usual, simple. We turn on the miner and, using the Windows program - IP Scanner, we find its IP. We drive the IP into the browser and enter the factory login/password - root/root.
Here is the interface of our Antminer D3
We advise you to immediately set your ASIC miners to static IP addresses, this will make it easier in the future. Be sure to enter DNS 8.8.8.8 (not the router address). We had bad sex with non-working L3+ due to DNS problems. Setting 8.8.8.8 saves the day and works flawlessly.
Comparison of video card rigs for mining with ASIC
For example, let's take Innosilicon A10 Pro+ with 750 MH/s. His opponent will be farms from RTX 30 series GPUs with a similar hashrate on Ethereum.
| ASIC | 8*RTX 3070 | 8*RTX 3080 | 8*RTX 3090 | |
| Recommended price, $ | 4285 | 600*13=7800 | 837*8=6696 | 1807*6=10842 |
| Consumption, W | 1350 | 200*13=2600 (undervolting) | 240*8=1920 (undervolting) | 300*6=1800 (undervolting) |
| Hashrate, MH/S | 750 | 60*13=780 | 100*8=800 | 125*6=750 |
As can be seen from the table, even when taking into account the recommended price, and not the price for which they are actually sold now, video cards perform worse. Of course, if you compare them with outdated ASIC s9 and the like, they may turn out to be profitable, but still we are looking at the situation in 2022.
Anminer D3 firmware
If you wish, you can immediately flash the device; download the latest firmware from the Bitmain website.
If your room is super-ventilated, you can try to overclock the device at your own risk, they say you can do +20% easily with proper cooling.
What is ASIC for mining
This abbreviation refers to a device that can perform cryptographic operations related to the mining of Bitcoin or altcoins. Depending on the manufacturer and the specific model, they can work with different encryption algorithms, so they are best suited for certain cryptocurrencies.
The ASIC miner operates on the basis of integrated circuits, which ensures high performance when performing calculations. All this is packaged in a specially designed case with thoughtful cooling to extend the life of the equipment.
Alternative firmware Antminer D3
There is another overclocking option: using alternative firmware Blissz firmware (10/12 v1.12 update) the power consumption from the outlet is reduced. You can also do precise overclocking by changing the parameters of each hashboard individually.
Anminer D3 profitability in 2018
Tired? Let's move on to the fun part - counting money. In December 2022, the DASH course made such a pirouette.
Today DASH is trading at $930, the profitability has increased, although WhaToMine.com talks about $6 per day.
The profitability on Coinmine.pl yesterday was $8 per day. The picture shows the statistics of 10 pieces of Antminer D3.
The electricity consumption of one Antminer D3 is 1.2 kW/h when using the original firmware (with an alternative firmware it may be less than 1 kW/h, but the performance is slightly lower).
Advantages and disadvantages of ASIC miner D3
The key advantages of Antminer D3 include the famous name of its manufacturer. The equipment that came off the assembly line of the Chinese corporation Bitmain has repeatedly received high praise and rave reviews from both ordinary users and experts.
The D3 miner is easy to use, has high performance, and provides a good income. In addition, it is designed for mining dash, a coin that is one of the most promising for mining today.
The cost of the D3 is more affordable compared to other models of specialized mining equipment, which is also very important. Of course, we are talking about comparative affordability, since ASICs initially belong to the category of devices that not everyone can afford.
As for the disadvantages, they are the same for any mining equipment: rapid loss of relevance, long payback period. From the summer until the beginning of 2022, this model remained one of the most productive for mining coins running on the X11 algorithm.
For some time, its main competitor remained the Miner DR-100 produced by Pinidea. A few months ago, the developers increased the hashrate of the DR-100 to 22 GHz, after which Antminer began to yield. And soon a new player was released onto the market - Innosilicon A5 DashMaster, capable of delivering 32.5 GHz with an electricity consumption of 750 Wh, and this became a significant claim to success.
conclusions
This is not to say that the device is incredibly profitable, but you don’t have to worry about breaking even. If DASH grows further, or other cryptocurrencies based on the X11 algorithm appear, Antminer D3 will show itself. And if you purchased the device in October and HOLDED your DASH, you were probably delighted by the growth of this cryptocurrency.
Another option is to find new coins on X11 and mine them, but this is a difficult job and requires knowledge of the English language.
For example, our L3+ began to bring in $5 more after the LTC rate increased. In the Antminer L3+ review, we wrote about profits of $20 per day, now it is already $25 per day.
To safely sell and buy mined cryptocurrency, we recommend a Telegram bot. Read the overview and details of the work in this article.
Do you want to be the first to know about the emergence of a new cryptocurrency based on the X11 algorithm? Then subscribe to our Telegram channel!
What advantages can you get if you buy an ASIC?
Everyone knows about the opportunity to mine cryptocurrency on their own computer or a farm created on the basis of video cards. But for this you need to have some knowledge, be able to assemble stacks of several GPUs, configure special programs, etc. Having decided to buy an ASIC, the task becomes easier, and the following positive aspects appear:
If everything consisted exclusively of advantages, then everyone would mine this way, but this is not entirely true. Therefore, it is impossible not to note several features of ASIC miners that must be taken into account before purchasing:
- The manufacturer offers only 1 or several algorithms with which mining is possible.
- Good cooling is impossible without many fans, so the device makes noise, sometimes quite noticeable.
- A ready-made machine for mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies consumes quite a lot of energy, so a good power supply is required.
- If a piece of equipment fails, it can be difficult to fix the problem yourself, and you have to contact a service center for help.
- As the complexity of mining and DAG files increases, the ASIC will lose efficiency, and the only way to restore it will be to purchase a new model.
