China's top crypto-mining hardware-maker reportedly furloughs staff
(2023/10/10)
- Reference: 1696915688
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/10/10/bitmain_furloughs_report/
- Source link:
The world's largest source of hardware designed for the task of mining cryptocurrency, Beijing-based Bitmain, has reportedly furloughed staff after disappointing sales.
Bitmain's Antminer boxes – which employ application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) tuned for the job of mining crypto – are [1]thought to command 75 percent of the market for such hardware.
But according to [2]reports in [3]Chinese media , the manufacturer has reduced staff levels after dire September financials produced red ink.
[4]
The Register has seen a screenshot of a purported internal Bitmain message that states cashflow recovery in September was not satisfactory, and some business units continue to underperform.
[5]
[6]
That situation has made furloughs necessary for at least September – with a decision to be made on October employment last weekend.
In August 2022, the time of Bitmain's last English language blog post, the biz [7]posted news of a reward scheme for loyal customers who paid for orders placed before the so-called "Crypto winter" – which saw prices for common cryptocoins crash and investors cool on the instruments after events like the collapse of FTX and TerraLuna. Bitmainy continued to [8]promote a loyalty scheme for long-term customers that offers greater rewards for larger orders.
[9]
Perhaps those schemes haven't done well enough of late.
[10]US v Sam Bankman-Fried trial begins ... as imploded crypto-biz boss sues his insurer
[11]Texas cryptomining outfit earns more from idling rigs than digging Bitcoin
[12]Cryptocoin Ponzi scheme AirBit Club co-founder jailed
[13]Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs
With former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried on trial, nasty news about crypto will be hard to escape for weeks to come. Bitcoin, meanwhile, trades for around $27,600 apiece at the time of writing – down from a June 2023 high of over $30,000 and well below the $61,000-plus price from late 2021. Ethereum's November 2021 peak of $4,600 has seldom been sighted since: it now sells at $1,584 apiece.
At those prices – and with energy costs high thanks to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine – it's not hard to see why would-be miners aren't filling in purchase orders for ASICs and using express couriers to speed them to Bitmain.
For what it's worth, Bitmain tried to diversify beyond crypto. In 2017 [14]it told Quartz of its plans to get into the AI business.
That appears not to have happened, leaving Chinese workers out of pocket and facing uncertain futures – a status shared by plenty of crypto investors. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/exploring-top-companies-asic-miners-market-guide-forecasted-patel/
[2] https://www.leiphone.com/category/zaobao/xCmk4l2MjEnj8JcJ.html
[3] https://pandaily.com/bitmain-temporarily-halts-employee-salary-payments/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://blog.bitmain.com/en/bitmain-reward-coupon-program-2/
[8] https://www.bitmain.com/zh/news-detail/301
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/03/sbfd_trial_insurance_lawsuit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/07/texas_crypto_mining_outfit_energy/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/27/crypto_ponzi_airbit_operator_jailed/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/08/standard_power_nuclear_datacenter/
[14] https://qz.com/1053799/chinas-bitmain-dominates-bitcoin-mining-now-it-wants-to-cash-in-on-artificial-intelligence
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Bitmain's Antminer boxes – which employ application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) tuned for the job of mining crypto – are [1]thought to command 75 percent of the market for such hardware.
But according to [2]reports in [3]Chinese media , the manufacturer has reduced staff levels after dire September financials produced red ink.
[4]
The Register has seen a screenshot of a purported internal Bitmain message that states cashflow recovery in September was not satisfactory, and some business units continue to underperform.
[5]
[6]
That situation has made furloughs necessary for at least September – with a decision to be made on October employment last weekend.
In August 2022, the time of Bitmain's last English language blog post, the biz [7]posted news of a reward scheme for loyal customers who paid for orders placed before the so-called "Crypto winter" – which saw prices for common cryptocoins crash and investors cool on the instruments after events like the collapse of FTX and TerraLuna. Bitmainy continued to [8]promote a loyalty scheme for long-term customers that offers greater rewards for larger orders.
[9]
Perhaps those schemes haven't done well enough of late.
[10]US v Sam Bankman-Fried trial begins ... as imploded crypto-biz boss sues his insurer
[11]Texas cryptomining outfit earns more from idling rigs than digging Bitcoin
[12]Cryptocoin Ponzi scheme AirBit Club co-founder jailed
[13]Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs
With former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried on trial, nasty news about crypto will be hard to escape for weeks to come. Bitcoin, meanwhile, trades for around $27,600 apiece at the time of writing – down from a June 2023 high of over $30,000 and well below the $61,000-plus price from late 2021. Ethereum's November 2021 peak of $4,600 has seldom been sighted since: it now sells at $1,584 apiece.
At those prices – and with energy costs high thanks to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine – it's not hard to see why would-be miners aren't filling in purchase orders for ASICs and using express couriers to speed them to Bitmain.
For what it's worth, Bitmain tried to diversify beyond crypto. In 2017 [14]it told Quartz of its plans to get into the AI business.
That appears not to have happened, leaving Chinese workers out of pocket and facing uncertain futures – a status shared by plenty of crypto investors. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/exploring-top-companies-asic-miners-market-guide-forecasted-patel/
[2] https://www.leiphone.com/category/zaobao/xCmk4l2MjEnj8JcJ.html
[3] https://pandaily.com/bitmain-temporarily-halts-employee-salary-payments/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://blog.bitmain.com/en/bitmain-reward-coupon-program-2/
[8] https://www.bitmain.com/zh/news-detail/301
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZSUgwsHTzXVSD71BBCu@jgAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/03/sbfd_trial_insurance_lawsuit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/07/texas_crypto_mining_outfit_energy/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/27/crypto_ponzi_airbit_operator_jailed/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/08/standard_power_nuclear_datacenter/
[14] https://qz.com/1053799/chinas-bitmain-dominates-bitcoin-mining-now-it-wants-to-cash-in-on-artificial-intelligence
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
When the people making the shovels go out of business ....
Howard Sway
... you know the gold rush is well and truly over.
tony72
The bitcoin mining industry has made no sense during this bear market. What's supposed to happen (I thought, anyway), is that when the price of bitcoin drops below the level at which miners can make a profit, the least efficient miners are forced out of the market, or have to turn off some of their machines. This leads to a reduction in hashrate, and the bitcoin algorithms then adjust the difficulty down, so that less energy is required to mine each bitcoin, and so forth until the cost of mining a bitcoin drops close to the market price, and a new equilibrium point is reached.
However what we've actually seen in this bear market is new all-time highs in the hashrate, with miners just seemingly mining harder and racking up debt while the price is low, in the belief that the price will eventually recover, and all that mining will pay off. If we're now seeing mining machines no longer selling, then perhaps that strategy is now catching up with the miners. It already seemed likely that many miners wouldn't survive the next halving, but maybe some of them won't even make it that far.
It's almost as if there is no money
in mining crypto.