The autonomous and privacy-conscious digital currency Decred, which was launched on February 8, 2016 at USD 1, is trading at USD 91 as of May 30, 2018. At a time when the rest of the market is in decline, Decred’s price spike hasn’t escaped the attention of the cryptocurrency mining community as well. Because of this, hardware companies are now starting dedicated ASIC miners that are explicitly tailored for decred mining. While most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, use a single consensus mechanism, Decred uses a mix of the Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanisms.
Mining with ASICs rejected
To meet the ever-growing hardware needs of miners, Obelisk released a custom 28nm ASIC and calls it DCR1. The ASIC has a hash rate of 1200 Gh / s and a power consumption of less than 500 W.
As a result of the introduction of dedicated mining hardware for the currency by several manufacturers, the hash rate of the Decred network has increased from 5,000 Th / s to 12,000 Th / s in just two weeks. In fact, that number is currently 16.3 k Th / s. These high-performance ASICs are likely to ruin most of the GPU mining pools currently in use.
Calculation of the profit from decreed mining
Miners validate transactions on the network and ensure that each transaction complies with the defined rules. For this they are rewarded with a certain amount of cryptocurrency. Factors to consider when calculating the profitability of an ASIC miner include the hash rate of the chip, the difficulty of the network, the power consumption of the machine, the cost of electricity, the fee to mine it in a pool, and the number of coins that are rewarded per block. The machine’s hash rate is the rate at which it processes blocks, and the higher the hash rate, the higher the profit.
The Obelisk DCR1 also competes against greats like the Ibelink 6 Th Miner. Ibelink DSM6T reportedly achieves a hash rate of 6.23 Th / s, making it the fastest dedicated decred miner in the world. The DSM6T has a power consumption of 2.1 kW and weighs around 17.6 kg.
Bitmain, the maker of Bitcoin’s most powerful and profitable ASIC miner, the Antminer S9, is also expected to launch a dedicated Decred mining ASIC. The Bitmain Antminer S9i-14.0 has a hash rate of 14 Th / s with a power consumption of 1.28 kW. Bitmain is the leader in mining hardware and has near-monopoly. It is widely expected that the company will launch a dedicated Decred ASIC by the third quarter of 2018 in order to maintain its market share in the 16nm ASIC sector.
Baikal has a number of ASIC miners programmed to also work with the Blake256 algorithm. The Baikal Giant B Miner is the company’s premium product and offers a hash rate of up to 160 Gh / s.
The best recognized ASIC on the market
The cost of the ASICs can vary from $ 1,000 to $ 10,000. For example, the Ibelink DSM6T, which will hit stores on June 5, 2018, is priced at $ 9,999. The Obelisk DCR1, on the other hand, can be purchased for $ 1,999.
Any miner looking to set up a Decred mining rig must also consider the initial up-front cost of a high-performance ASIC miner. While the expensive ASICs have a higher hashrate, the time to return on investment stays about the same, which increases the risk. However, a higher hashrate ensures profitability even as network difficulties increase.
Finally, the power consumption of the chip is another factor to consider. Electricity costs vary based on the geographic location of the miner and can often be a miner’s largest cost.
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