Manufacturers Mark Down Bitcoin Miners as Price Drop, Halving Change Calculus

Bitcoin mining machines are on sale.

Last month’s crash in cryptocurrency prices has prompted manufacturers to sell inventories at a discount, in some cases as steep as 20 percent, over the past few weeks. Both the newest models and slightly older machines have been marked down.

Complicating the matter is the imminent bitcoin halving in May that will reduce the network’s mining reward by half, causing most miners to be less profitable if bitcoin’s price doesn’t increase significantly by then.

See also: Bitcoin Halving, Explained

For instance, DJ Miner, an overseas distributor for Shenzhen, China-based MicroBT, was advertising about $2,500 per unit of the manufacturer’s flagship WhatsMiner M30S early last month. After bitcoin’s March 12 crash – the worst sell-off in seven years – the price is now cut by 20 percent to $2,000 per unit. 

The WhatsMiner M20S, a less advanced but popular model that boosted MicroBT’s market share against major rival Bitmain in 2019, is also…