It’s not every day you get to see a machine designed to mint money. KnCMiner is a Stockholm-based hardware company that has single-handedly changed the face of Bitcoin mining. Their products sell out almost instantly – the $5,000 Jupiter is already gone – and, amazingly, the company actually ships. In a world of charlatans, broken promises, and outright lies, it’s refreshing to find a company like this one.
I spoke with Alexander Lawn, the public face of KnCMiner, on his way through New York. He brought one of his rigs for my perusal and I can report that it looks great, works, and is a real, shipping product. Alex joined the company after critiquing it online in Bitcoin forums, an interesting way to get noticed. He has worked with the team, including Andreas Kennemar and Marcus Erlandsson.
The hardware itself is highly specialized. Because each ASIC board needs a massive heatsink and fan, most of the metal case is open to allow the free flow of air. A small control board runs to IO and the rest of the cables are power – one power supply per board. It’s like looking at some sort of strange lifeform dedicated to breaking down a very specific amino acid. This rig can mine at 550 gigahashes per second. For comparison, the average graphics card miner tops out at about 100 MH/s.
When these machines boot up, the market notices. This is the second edition of the Jupiter miner and the hardware already moved markets… and is already discontinued. Owners will be able to easily upgrade their hardware over time and update the ASICs as necessary. Where is KnCMiner heading next? Neptune. Their latest miner is the fastest in the world to date and sold $8 million in orders in a single day. Pre-order pricing is $12,995 and the company plans on selling a mere 2,400 units.
The Jupiter is truly bespoke hardware. The chips are designed in Stockholm and the entire system was built in Sweden. They are as rare as Fabergé eggs at this point and the demand is only increasing. Lawn described one encounter with a Russian customer who called up asking if he could bring a bag full of cash to buy a miner. Alex calmly explained that there was a waiting list and that they were sold out. The Russian grunted and said: “I’ll bring more cash.”