Report: the "machine king" S9 contributed 23% of bitcoin's total net power

Source: The Block

By Celia Wan

The role of a particular type of mining machine in the overall bitcoin network is likely to be a topic of interest to miners and device makers, as it shows how quickly the market is adopting new products. A recent study by Coin Metrics found that the S9 ant miner, launched by bitmainland, accounted for about 23 per cent of bitcoin's net power.

The company's research estimates that the S9, one of the best-selling mining machines on the market at the time, contributed 78 percent of network computing power in 2018. Since then, however, the number has steadily declined, while the market share of other miners has risen.

Is that a reasonable number? In march, according to Coindesk, the head of spark capital at the time estimated that S9 contributed about 20 to 25 percent of the total effort; Earlier this year, Blockware Solutions, a mining equipment company, said in a conversation with The Block that The figure was about 50 per cent.

However, the Coin Metrics study is not based on experience, but on a web-based distribution of nonce random Numbers, the arrangement of these arbitrary Numbers (which miners include in the hash of each block) that hints at how the use of mining hardware has changed over the years. (more information is availableDynastic succession of bitcoin miners: tracking S9 and S17 miners through nonce maps)

In fact, the trend is not surprising. In the past two years, with the introduction of new types of mining machines, such as the S17 and T17 in early 2019, bitland has quickly become a popular replacement for the S9. In April, bitmicro, the world's second-largest miner, also launched its M30 series. New mining machines continue to iterate, S9's market share is bound to continue to decline.

Next week, the bitcoin network will halve its block rewards for the third time in its history, from 12.5 bitcoins to 6.25. In the past year, many mines have upgraded their equipment to more efficient models to offset the expected decline in mining profits.

But the fate of the outdated S9 may not be over any time soon, and as bitcoin prices rebound from their mid-march lows and parts of southwest China enter the rainy season, some miners may opt to stick with the S9 because it is still profitable.

The original link: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/63892/report-bitcoin-antminer-s9-bitcoin-hash-rate

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