Bitmain’s KA3 asic review
The flagship mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain impressed the market again by releasing a brand new and powerful device: KA3.
In the presentation, Bitmain announced that this novelty involves a real leap in the development of asic production and can demonstrate unique performance and energy efficiency. Let’s take a closer look at the device.
KA3 parameters
Bitmain specifies the following main characteristics:
- Algorithm: Blake2S.
- Coin: Kadena
- Power: 3154 W
- Hashrate 166TH/s
- Parameters: 430195.5290 mm
- Price: $5300
In general, the new asic does not differ from the previously presented models externally.
The main differences lie in its performance. Let’s consider this parameter in more detail.
Profitability
Bitmain claims that this miner is ideal for mining Kadena.
The table shows that the nearest competitor is Goldshell KD Max, but its efficiency is four times lower than the new leader. The first thing this means: you don’t need to install four asics: one is enough. In turn, this seriously saves on electricity costs.
A yield of $73 per day promises $2190 per month and $26280 per year. The calculations on paper all look very attractive, but not the fact that in reality, everything will look the same at the time when you start using this equipment. We will go into more detail on that below, but for now, let’s look at the Kadena coin for which this equipment is designed.
Kadena
While writing this review, the coin ranks 113th on the list and costs $1.35. At the time of hype and active market growth, its price was as high as $24, however, today’s realities are different.
It’s impossible to say for sure that KDA will fall or rise. Nevertheless, experts point out a positive aspect of Kadena: many funds are financing it.
It gives reason to believe some stability compared to, for example, meme tokens. At the time of the launch of the ICO, the value was $1, and you can not say that in the end showed strong growth. True, there is an option to write it off as the general negative trends of the crypto market. So, let’s consider the pros and cons of this asic.
Advantages and disadvantages
The obvious pluses of the flagship from Bitmain include:
- Performance does not just exceed the parameters of competitors, it overcomes them four times, that is, the gap is more than significant, so it is hard to expect that the KA3 will quickly become obsolete or close analogs will appear.
- Before the device appeared on the market, experts believed that its cost will be 3-4 times higher than announced. In the end, it turned out to be an excellent price-performance ratio.
- High yield. If you believe the calculations, the KA3 allows to get revenue from mining over $20 thousand per year.
Experts have identified the following disadvantages:
- Bitmain does not advertise how many devices it releases in the end. A lot of asic machines may just “destroy the net.”
- Even having the information, many miners remember the precedents with the A3 device. At that time, the manufacturer’s desire flooded the market with equipment that reduced the profitability from $100 to $1 per year.
- The high yields held exist only on paper. It may be much lower when the miners get to their owners.
- Bitmain manipulates the market by stating that it is willing to invest in the Kadena network. However, it allocated only four miners (as was indicated in the presentation), which is negligible for such a large company.
To summarize. Yes, the performance of KA3 can impress, but decide to buy such equipment only when you are already an experienced miner and know the market. For the first asic, such costs are too high, and the algorithm is too complicated. Therefore, beginners should take a basic SHA-256. Moreover, there are low prices for this equipment right now.
Nevertheless, KA3 from Bitmain is a new word and a new chapter in the miners’ history, because there are no analogs of such performance today.
