ASIC prices are rising again! The right time to buy? Mining profitability January 2023

After a long decline in 2022, ASIC prices were rising again at the start of 2023. Is it the right time to buy? In this monthly video update (in French), we analyse how machine prices have evolved, the profitability of ASICs and graphics cards, then share the ways we use to pay less for electricity.

Video from January 2023: the figures below date from that time. See "What about today?" at the end of the article.

Update: Kadena is dead. The organisation behind Kadena ceased operations in October 2025 and KDA collapsed: what this article says about Kadena is no longer relevant.

ASIC prices: a floor, then a rebound

We rely on a website that tracks the average price of ASICs: its values do not reflect prices including VAT in France, but the trend matches what we have seen. The average price tracked had fallen from about 100 dollars to 14, with the decline accelerating in July, August and September 2022, then an almost flat curve over the last three months: prices never seen before. The price of an S19 followed the same trend, its two big past rises being correlated with the price of Bitcoin.

After Bitcoin rose by 30 to 40%, machine prices had in fact climbed back by about 10%, a rebound we were also seeing with our suppliers in China.

ASIC profitability at €0.10 per kWh

The Antminer KA3 and K7 were not out yet: when they arrive, the hashrate of their networks will rise and their figures will change. For the other machines, the payback time at the prices of the time ran to a great many months. If you sell your coins at 50% of their all-time high, the picture was more reasonable: 8 months for the L7 (Litecoin/Dogecoin), 16 months for the GT Miner (ETC, ETHW).

At €0.10 per kWh, all machines remained positive: they did not use more electricity than they earned. On the Bitcoin side:

• with Bitcoin at 50% of its all-time high, i.e. €28,000, which is not science fiction, the machines paid for themselves in roughly two to two and a half years;
• the Antminer S19 Pro 100 TH, really cheap despite a slight increase in recent weeks, paid for itself in 19 months in that scenario, and in 5 months with Bitcoin at €56,000;
• at €0.05 per kWh, the same S19 Pro paid for itself in 15 months, even at the prices of the time.

For the L7, Dogecoin is the coin that earns the most, and rumours claimed it would move to proof of stake. At the end of December, Michi Lumin, one of Dogecoin's main developers, denied it: no proposal had been made, and such a decision would have to be approved and would take a long time.

Noisy or quiet ASIC?

Antminers are very loud and use a lot of power. Some people modify them (fans removed, ducts…) to reduce the noise, and a low hashrate mode lets them use less power and be more efficient.

The quiet ASIC family includes the GT Miner, iPollo and Jasminer machines, which mine around twenty Ethash coins: Ethereum Classic, ETHW, ETP, QuarkChain… The GT Miner V66 cost €1,550 excluding VAT (add 20% VAT) for 600 MH/s and 400 W. At €0.10 per kWh, it paid for itself in 62 months, which is not great, but in 15 months if you sell your ETC at 50% of its all-time high, and in 7 months with ETC at around €75.

A customer who owns a sailing boat, equipped with batteries and solar panels, actually chose it: he needed a machine drawing about 500 W at most to mine around the clock.

Graphics cards: mining is still tough

On the GPU side, Nexa had pumped sharply and remained the most profitable, but for us it is speculative mining: its difficulty had gone from 22 to 150 in less than a month. By choice, we were mining Flux instead, a coin we believe has a future, with a solid roadmap. Its hashrate, around 5.7 Msol/s, was holding up better than others. ETC's, which had climbed to about 250 TH/s, had fallen to just under 120 TH/s before rising slightly.

With an RTX 3070 and electricity at $0.10 per kWh, Nexa brought in 18 cents a day and Radiant 7 cents, while Ravencoin was at zero and Ergo and Flux were very slightly negative. At best, you accumulated a little more crypto than the electricity cost, without paying back the card. At €0.16 or €0.17 per kWh, nothing was profitable any more.

Our advice: avoid the RTX 4000 series for now, as it is too expensive, and stick with the RX 6000 and RTX 3000 series, with the RTX 3070 still the favourite. Card prices had fallen a lot, so it was a good time to buy, but second-hand cards, carefully chosen, rather than new ones.

Our ways to pay less for electricity

• The EDF Tempo contract: by avoiding the twenty or so red days a year, you pay on average about €0.13 per kWh instead of €0.16 to €0.17. It is the contract we use as private individuals.
• Solar panels: we were about to have 6 kW of panels installed.
• An official structure: a company, or even a micro-enterprise, lets you put electricity through as an expense. With our structure dedicated to mining, that easily represents a 30% reduction on the price of electricity. Mining more officially does, however, have pros and cons.

By combining these solutions, you can get down to €0.10 per kWh, or even less, in France.

What about today?

These prices and payback times reflect the market in January 2023. Since then, coin prices, network difficulty and machine prices have changed a great deal, and the April 2024 halving cut Bitcoin's block reward in half, from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC. The calculation therefore needs to be redone with current figures.

To do so, use our Bitcoin mining profitability calculator and browse our ASIC miners, or our home miners if noise is a concern. To cut your bill, also discover the installation of our 6 kW of solar panels.