⚡️Rig Prices Close In On Yearly Highs

Happy Thursday, Luxor crew!

November is upon us, and as we approach the close of the new year, things are coming full circle in the Bitcoin mining realm.

Bitcoin price is (more-or-less) in all-time high territory, hashprice transcended its yearly high on October 20th, and hashrate is nearly where it was before China’s mining ban.

ASIC prices are creeping up on their all-time highs, as well (specifically new-gen and mid-gen machines, that is, but not old-gen rigs like the S9—something tells me we won’t see S9s selling for ~$2,800 ever again…)

We’ll be breaking down rig price recovery in this newsletter, but before we get to that, a few data updates from Hashrate Index.

Hashprice

$0.3650/TH (-5.7%)

Hashrate

159.58 EH/s (+1.9)

Crypto Stock Index

$7,667 (+14%)

Rig Price Index

Under 38 J/TH: $103.25 (+1%)

38-60 J/TH: $71.15 (+1.6%)

60-100 J/TH: $45.70 (-0.02%)

Over 100 J/TH: $23.74 (+0.8%)

Rig Prices Close in On Yearly Highs

Across the board, Bitcoin mining rigs are close to clearing the highs they set this past spring—in fact, one series is only a few hundred bucks shy of making the leap.

The average price for rigs of all calibers rose slightly over the month of October, putting many of them just one Bitcoin pump away from all-time high (or in the S9’s case, yearly-high) territory.

Of the five rig series we profile on Hashrate Index, they are the following percentage points off from their Spring highs:

• S9: 19.2%
• S17: 10.2%
• S19: 10.7%
• M20: 20.3%
• M30: 3%

Unsurprisingly, the oldest rig we track, the S9, is one of the farthest off from its yearly high. These machines are largely being decommissioned from industrial-scale farms in places like North America in favor of new equipment, and so they are flooding the market and being sold to hobbyist miners or those with near-zero power costs.

Curiously, the M30 series has recovered the most since the post-China ban dip this summer, while the M20 series has had a rockier recovery and is down more than the S9 from its Spring high. Perhaps this is a testament to the S9’s timelessness, as it came out 3 years prior to the M20.

As with everything in the world of mining, Bitcoin’s autumn price pump fueled these recoveries, just as its summer dump following China’s mining ban contributed to their tumbling in April, May, and June.

As it stands now, Bitcoin breaking above its new all-time high of $66,500 and maintaining support above this level would probably be enough to push mining rig prices to new highs.

Of course, Bitcoin’s price isn’t the only influencing factor here. Just as panic-selling following China’s mining ban flooded the resale market with rigs old and new to contribute to depressed prices, the semi-conductor shortage, supply chain issues, and manufacturing hiccups could give ASIC prices a boost, too.

Bitmain, for instance, is reportedly moving its manufacturing capabilities out of mainland China, which will put a damper on the rate at which the company churns out rigs in the coming year. This move, coupled with chip supply squeezes and global supply chain disfunction, could contribute to rising rig prices if demand persists.

With Bitcoin’s price popping and all these factors at play, perhaps those $20,000 S19 calls aren’t so crazy after all, especially if the hashprice super-cycle is more than just a meme…

Happy Hashing!

-Luxor Team