Ethereum Mining Saved, Bitmain Updates Antminer E3 Firmware

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Ethereum miners no longer need to worry about Antminer E3’s obsolescence coming next month as Bitmain has released a firmware update earlier today.

Antminer E3 Was About to Become Useless at Mining Ethereum

On Monday, Beijing-based mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain announced that it had updated the firmware of the Antminer E3. This will allow Ethereum miners to continue using the machine without being afraid of its obsolescence.

Bitmain pointed to recent media reports, according to which the equipment, which was designed specifically for mining Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, will stop being relevant by next month.

The allegations were based on hash rate output projections made by altcoin mining pool operator 2Miners. The miner stressed that the recent decline in the hash rate output of the equipment would make it obsolete by April.

In a blog post published at the end of February, 2Miners presented its “disappointing” conclusions. The miner said that the Antminer E3 had already stopped mining ETC.

When it addressed a request to Bitmain, the Chinese company replied:

Sorry for your inconvenience we got the confirm from technical department. E3 miner is a 4G video card. E3 is related to ETH algorithm, and DDR capacity is up to the upper limit, so E3 will not be able to continue mining. The meaning is E3 only can mine to January 2020, then will not mine again.

Bitmain’s New Firmware Update Extends E3 Life to October

It took less than 3 weeks for Bitmain to fix the issue and update the Ethereum mining firmware. While this update ensures Ethereum miners can continue using the Antminer E3 after April, it is not clear how long it will last. The company said that the final block height of the E3 is 11,400,000, which means mining can continue until October 2020.

The new firmware fixed the issue of growth of directed acyclic graph (DAG) files, which narrowed the capability of the equipment to miner ETH or ETC. This has been achieved by expanding the usage of Double Date Rate (DDR) Memory, as more space is required to process DAG files.

Do you think Bitmain’s reaction was prompt? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

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