Proto ensures that your ASIC saves 20% on maintenance costs in each update cycle.
Today, Bitcoin ASICs have a life cycle of 2 or 3 years.
Block, through its Proto Mining Branch, launched its expected mining ASIC manufactured in the United States on August 14: Proto Rig. The launch, which has not taken miners and strangers by surprise, is being received with hope. What does this ASIC propose with its so -called modular design and why it is creating so much Hype in the Bitcoin mining market? There are two questions that will be resolved in this article.
As Cryptonotics reported, Proto Rig has a density of 9.4 kW per square foot, an efficiency of 14.1 j/th per 0.12 kW of energy expenditure and, according to proto mining, the ability to house 91 TH/S per printed circuit plate and up to 819 TH/S with the 9 hash boards it includes. The equipment can consume up to 12,000 W. 4,000 W per power supply.
Proto Rig saves 20% on maintenance costs
But the most striking of proto rig perhaps your capacity savings: 20% in maintenance and investment costs in each update cyclereports block. In this savings capacity, the proto proposal for Bitcoin ASIC mining is summarized, and the reason why the launch has created Hype In the community.
In Bitcoin mining, an update cycle is defined as the period in which miners replace or update their hardware on the occasion of staying competitive and adapt to the growing complexity of the network.
The more extensive the life cycles of a hardware, the more advantageous this is in cost of costs. This is so for the simple reason that a miner with a longer life is more profitable that one whose update cycles are very short. Meanwhile, short update cycles involve greater maintenance costs.
Generally, an Asic ceases to be profitable for three reasons:
- Energy efficiency: Recise models offer more hashrate capacity for watt.
- Difficulty of the network: By increasing, the least powerful equipment to solve the Nance loses competitiveness.
- Bitcoin price (BTC): If it falls, the margins are compressed and the marginal equipment goes out.
In summary: if an ASIC needs too much electric consumption to undermine a bitcoin, the mining gain margins are reduced or null, especially if the price of BTC, which is volatile and unpredictable (although less and less), less and less does not compensate for energy expenses.
Yes, meanwhile, the Difficulty of Bitcoin It increases and an Asic loses competitiveness, it cannot undermine a block, and its owner obtain rewards, except if any pool that allocates fixed payments to its workers admits it.
Bitcoin’s ASIC’s obsolescence crisis
At the time of the writing, of the most profitable ASICs in the world (which produce more than $ 10 daily of profits), At least 16 of them left in 2025 or will leave this year or the one that comes to the market. The remaining ASIC came out in 2024.
The same ranking of ASIC MINER VALUE It offers a gloomy perspective: miners launched in the aforementioned years are in red numbers, such as the Mini Asic BMM100 of Brains or the Canaan Avalon Nano 3.
This data, therefore, compresses the accelerated obsolescence of the ASIC to undermine Bitcoin, where Teams that are relatively new and have one or two years in the market have already lost, to some extent, relevance.
As if that were not enough, ASIC with traditional designs lack modularity. It is not uncommon that the damage single component Internal of a bitmain machine imply the total death of the deviceor at least excessive expenses of transfer and sending to technical support.
Bitcoin Asic won life time
In this context, Proto Rig de Block, with its modular design, represents an important philosophical advance in the mining industry. Thomas Templeton, Head of Hardware at Block and Proto, Write the following:
What was previously an asset of 3 to 5 years is approaching 10 years, increasingly powerful and profitable [con Proto Rig]. Operators obtain savings in shipping and installation, a cost reduction of up to 20% in each update cycle and a longer useful life, since the infrastructure improves their working capital, its depreciation calendar and its profitability time.
The promotional intention of that message is unavoidable. Even so, this modular design philosophy applied to Proto CAT promises to be revolutionary. A practical case exemplifies it: the physical system of this ASIC gives immediate access to hashboards (circuit plates containing chips that perform calculations to find the Nance of a block).
This is not a minor characteristic, and helps to raise the useful life of Bitcoin’s complete mining devices. «When updating, you don’t need to disassemble and replace your entire fleet. You can simply change the hashboards, ”summarizes Templeton.
Therefore, The same ASIC physical system can exceed 500 TH/SA 819 TH/S. Today, a similar transition demands the exchange of a complete physical system for another, which is expensive (and unnecessary from the design point of view).
Proto and block have everything to demonstrate
With Proto Rig as prototype, there are weight reasons to believe that Bitcoin mining is a few steps from crossing a threshold to another world, experiencing a transfiguration of its bases and principles. However, with justice, some experienced miners recommend caution.
Proto Rig still needs “tests in the real world, monitoring records, etc.” And “there are many important statements, but it is necessary to see the miners sent first” Comment Valuely @megamineralex on social network X.
This miner continues to say to dispute Bitmain dominance, even with all possible advantagesIt will be an arduous task: «They really need to compete with Bitmain and achieve something significant beyond an exciting press event. (…). If your form and product factor are excellent, Bitmain is likely to adopt something similar.
Being an important actor in hardware manufacturing is incredibly difficult. Whatsminer and Canaan have been on the market for a long time and stay out. I want to see more competition, variety, durable products, efficiency, but wanting those things is not reason to accept statements to the letter. I am skeptically optimistic.
@Megamineralex on Social Network X.
In short, the block project is logical, ambitious, impeccable. Its importance is pressed in advance after the prototype sample and the demonstration of its abilities. Definitely, Block has the technological basis to reimagine and create a new Bitcoin mining game.
However, essential development sections are missing for proto rig. When the distribution of this ASIC reaches several corners of the world and various mining farms acquire lots to undermine Bitcoin, we can know if block and its mining branch are on their way to their mission of changing the mining industry.
