Bitmain’s S19 Bitcoin Miners Account for Bulk of Network Hashrate, Says New Research

Three models of Bitmain mining rigs account for 76% of computing power on the bitcoin network, according to new research published by Coinmetrics on Tuesday.

The Antminer S19j Pro accounts for 34.3% of the network hashrate and the S19 for 28.1%, and they have been the most used machines on the network since March 2021, Coinmetrics found. The Antminer S19 XP accounts for another 13.7% of the network hashrate, said the report. Meanwhile, MicroBT’s M50 is below the threshold of detectability, the researchers said.

The study used a novel methodology to determine which mining machines are used in the bitcoin network by tracking different machines’ fingerprints. Different models consume differing amount of electricity to produce a given amount of computing power.

With newer, more efficient machines being plugged in, the energy efficiency of the network has also dramatically improved by about 60% since July 1, 2018, said the report.

The bitcoin network on average consumes 33.6 joules per terahash (J/TH) of computing power today, compared to 89.3 J/TH on July 1, 2018, the team found. However, “the rate of change was more agressive in the past,” said Karim Helmy, one of the authors of the report.