A recent tweet from Bitmain shows how the mining hardware maker is accelerating efforts to dominate the mining rigs game by launching a crypto mining WiFi router.
Crypto mining router as a new dual-functionality household item
Crypto mining is increasingly popular and, as such, companies creating mining hardware are trying to top one another with new inventions. One of the biggest and most dominant firms, Bitmain, was recently challenged by Canaan Creative, its long-time competitor.
Canaan came up with a crypto mining TV set, forcing Bitmain to up its game to stay relevant. Now, only a few short weeks later, Bitmain has announced its new product – Antrouter. As the name suggests, the product is a WiFi router which will have an option to mine cryptocurrencies.
We are pleased to announce the #antrouter R3-DASH & R3-SIA, new miners from the R3 series that is also dual-function WiFi Router and Crypto Miner that can mine #dashcoin & #siacoin. Order here Dash: (https://t.co/bT7VM9FWUT) & Sia: (https://t.co/4WvlkK62Zc) now while stock lasts! pic.twitter.com/j7WhkShgJi
— ANTMINER (@Antminer_main) August 6, 2018
Judging by the tweet, the router has two iterations – R3-SIA and R3-Dash, indicating that it will allow mining SiaCoin and Dash. Now, even though these miners are coming from Bitmain itself, the gains may not be astronomical. It is more likely that the router’s goal is to accumulate cryptos over a period of time in smaller quantities.
The new router will also be able to mine Blake2b and X11 as well as SiaCoin and Dash. The mining feature is simple to use, the user only needs to connect the device to the internet and check its status via their account on Bitmain.
The trend started with a TV
As mentioned previously, it would seem that the new trend is to create crypto miners that also function as household items. The router came right after Canaan’s TV, which is a Bitcoin mining rig. The TV produces around 2.8 trillion hashes each second, quite impressive seeing as mining will most likely come as its secondary service.
The TV comes with an additional AI feature, developed to make it even more attractive. Still, many remained skeptical of the new trend, and Xiao Lei, an analyst from Beijing, noted that it might have been better if Canaan simply added the mining feature to an existing popular TV brand, instead of inventing their own.
At the time, Canaan stated that they are planning to stop at the TV, and not try to transform another household item into a discreet mining rig. However, Bitmain’s new move might change that decision, especially considering that the two firms are serious rivals.
