Bitmain Signals Market Trouble With Massive Discounts

Bitmain, the world’s leading manufacturer of mining machines, has launched a series of exceptional discounts on its equipment, including its latest models. This decision comes in a context of strong pressure on the sector : decline in hashprice, bitcoin crash, profitability in decline. Far from a classic commercial strategy, this operation reflects the tensions that the mining ecosystem is going through. Thus, the market leader is looking to quickly clear its stock.

Bitmain is discounting its machines

While the mining market is going through a critical phase, Bitmain, the global leader in ASIC equipment, has launched an unprecedented commercial operation.

The company now offers massive discounts on several of its flagship machines. Thus, even the most recent models, like the immersion-cooled S21, are offered at a rate of 7 dollars per terahash per second (TH/s).

Moreover, some bundled offers are auctioned without a reserve price, allowing buyers to name their own price.

This pricing strategy fits into a particularly tense economic context for mining actors.

Here are the key elements to remember :

• The hashprice, an indicator of expected income per unit of power (TH/s/day), has dropped to nearly 35 $, its lowest level in several years ;

• The breakeven threshold for many operators is estimated at 40 $/TH/s/day, meaning mining specialists operate at a loss ;

• The April 2024 halving reduced the reward per block to 3.125 BTC, halving the income;

• Contrary to market expectations, bitcoin has not offset this drop with a sustained price increase;

• Last October, BTC peaked at over 126,000 $, before dropping to 80,000 $ in November. It is now lower than on January 1, 2025, showing a 7 % decline and nearly 20 % compared to the January peak.

Margin pressure pushes the entire sector to rethink its priorities. In this context, Bitmain clearly seeks to quickly clear its stock with operators ready to take risks in an environment as volatile as uncertain.

A commercial survival strategy that redraws market rules

Beyond a simple price drop, Bitmain’s approach marks a break with its usual practices.

By allowing operators to “name their own price” for some bundled machine offers, the company seems to abandon any traditional valuation logic in an attempt to quickly liquidate stock.

This approach reflects a desire to generate cash in a period when demand is collapsing, even for the most powerful products in the catalog. Behind this commercial offensive, an industry in transition can be glimpsed.

The sharp drop in profitability is pushing many mining companies to reduce or suspend their activities while waiting for market improvement. For some analysts, this Bitmain strategy could also prefigure a repositioning towards other fields, such as artificial intelligence, where the company’s technical skills and production capacities might find new application. The explicit mention of industry difficulties shows that even the strongest players publicly acknowledge the scale of the crisis.

Bitmain’s retreat marks a critical step for the industry. Facing the hashprice drop and cost pressures, bitcoin mining companies are turning to green energy to save their margins. A transition that could reshape the mining economy more sustainably than market fluctuations.