Stories · as read on the Mining station
Bitdeer's SEAL Roadmap to 5 Joules per Terahash
At Mining Disrupt Miami 2024, Bitdeer laid out four chip generations, from 18.1 J/TH down to a 5 J/TH target, and five risks miners face.
A chip roadmap with dates on it. That is what Bitdeer brought to the stage at Mining Disrupt Miami 2024, held June 24 through 26, 2024. The speaker introduced herself as Jennifer from Bitdeer, and her subject was the risks miners take when they buy hardware without knowing what is coming next. When she spoke, Bitcoin traded at $61,272.
Today it trades at $81,619. She grouped the risks into five: the market, the technology, building a site, operating costs, and policy. The technology risk took most of her time. Her argument was that miners plan around the price of Bitcoin, and that a lack of public data on when new machines will ship adds a second layer of uncertainty on top of it.
"We believe that miner financial models are heavily influenced by the uncertainty of Bitcoin price," she said. Bitdeer's answer was to put its own plans on the screen. The first SEAL chip launched in the first quarter of 2024 at 18.1 joules per terahash, inside a machine the company expected to run at 20 to 23 joules per terahash, with first deliveries in the third quarter of 2024. The second chip targeted 14 joules per terahash.
The third targeted 10. The fourth, planned for the second quarter of 2025, targeted 5 joules per terahash at the chip, and 5.5 to 6 for the machine. "Mass production and deliveries are targeted to start in quarter 4, 2025," she said of that last generation. Those were targets, set out by the company that builds the machines, in June 2024.
She also talked about the ground under a mine. At one mountain site with heavy rain and a risk of landslides, Bitdeer cut into the slope and filled low ground to keep slopes under 45 degrees, then planted trees and grass. At its Ohio site, the buildings were designed to cut noise for the neighbours. On costs, her advice was to watch the electricity price and to diversify the supply chain so that reliable hardware is always within reach.
On policy, she told miners to follow regulatory changes and favour places with stable rules and sound laws. She closed on the company itself: founded by Jihan Wu, in mining for a decade, with a data center team she said had worked on more than 30 locations around the world since 2013, and a Texas site she ranked among the biggest in the country at the time. The full story, with the complete roadmap, is on Mining Disrupt at miningdisrupt dot com, and many more like it play around the clock on Bitcoin Radio.