Bitmain Slashes ASIC Prices: Mining Hardware Fire Sale Signals Industry Shakeout
Bitmain just dropped a bomb on the mining sector—a massive price cut on its flagship ASIC rigs. This isn't a routine discount; it's a distress flare shot over an industry battling collapsing hash prices and squeezed margins.
The Hardware Glut
When the biggest player in mining hardware starts slashing tags, everyone feels the tremor. Newer, more efficient models are cannibalizing sales of older inventory. Miners are holding off on capital expenditures, waiting for the next generation or a sustained rebound in crypto valuations. The result? Warehouses filling up with unsold silicon.
A Calculated Gamble or Pure Survival?
Bitmain's move is a classic play: liquidate inventory to generate cash flow and clear the deck. It pressures smaller competitors and resellers stuck with higher-priced gear. For surviving miners, it's a potential lifeline—cheaper hardware means a faster path to profitability, or at least a longer runway. For the rest? It's another sign that the easy money era of plug-and-play mining is over, buried under a mountain of electrical bills and regulatory scrutiny.
The finance bros watching from the sidelines will call it a 'healthy correction.' For those on the ground, it feels more like a race to the bottom—where the only winners are those with the deepest pockets and the cheapest power. Sometimes, the market doesn't just correct; it crushes.
Bitmain Offers S19 XP+ Hydro Miners at $4/TH in Discounted Bundle Deal
One promotion dated Dec. 23 offered a package of four S19 XP+ Hydro units paired with an ANTRACK V2 container, implying an effective price of roughly $4 per terahash for the 19 J/TH machines.
Shipments for that batch are scheduled to begin in January 2026, suggesting Bitmain is willing to lock in low pricing well ahead of delivery.
The MOVE followed a separate auction-style sale in November for the air-cooled S19k Pro, a 23 J/TH model. That sale opened with a starting bid of $5.5 per terahash and allowed buyers to submit their own pricing.
Final transaction values were determined after the bidding period closed, with deliveries slated for December 2025.
Discounting appears to extend well beyond limited promotions. Internal factory price lists shared with customers and reviewed by TheMinerMag show that as of Dec. 22, Bitmain was quoting prices as low as $3 per terahash for S19e XP Hydro and 3U S19 XP Hydro units, while S19 XP+ Hydro machines were listed around $4 per terahash.
Bitcoin network hashrate every Christmas Eve:
2009: 9 MH/s
2010: 108 GH/s
2011: 8 TH/s
2012: 22 TH/s
2013: 9 PH/s
2014: 271 PH/s
2015: 709 PH/s
2016: 2.3 EH/s
2017: 14 EH/s
2018: 39 EH/s
2019: 99 EH/s
2020: 134 EH/s
2021: 177 EH/s
2022: 240 EH/s
2023: 521 EH/s
2024: 779 EH/s… pic.twitter.com/50R2cogtGZ
Even newer hardware has not been spared. S21 Immersion miners were offered at approximately $7 per terahash, while S21+ Hydro machines were priced NEAR $8 per terahash before the application of coupons.
The pricing update emphasized availability heading into year-end, pointing to a coordinated effort to stimulate demand.
Alongside hardware discounts, Bitmain has been pushing hosting services as part of a bundled sales strategy.
Hosting rates shared with customers indicate power costs generally ranging from 5.5 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour across jurisdictions including the United States, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Paraguay and Ethiopia, plus an additional management fee.
The approach suggests Bitmain is leaning more heavily on integrated sales to move equipment.
Record Hashrate, Low Hashprice Squeeze Bitcoin Miners
The price cuts come as Bitcoin’s network hashrate hovers near record highs while the asset’s price has pulled back, keeping hashprice close to multi-year lows.
That combination has squeezed margins for miners and dampened appetite for new machines, particularly less efficient models, while intensifying competition among manufacturers and secondary-market sellers.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s network hashrate fell 4% in the month through Dec. 15, a development that could set the stage for stronger price performance in the months ahead, according to analysts at VanEck.
“When hash rate compression persists over longer periods, positive forward returns tend to occur more often and with greater magnitude,” the analysts wrote.
