[Newsflash]: Samson Mow Rips Bitmain 7nm Bitcoin ASIC Mining Chip into Shreds Listing Facts and Stats

Samson Mow Claims Bitmain’s 7nm Chip Announcement “Isn’t That Impressive” in Twitter Tirade

Noted Bitmain critic Samson Mow responded to the company’s big announcement today with skepticism. As Bitmain announced the launch of their new 7nm bitcoin mining hip, Samson Mow claimed the announcement “isn’t that impressive”.

Samson Mow has been a vocal critic of Bitmain over the last few months. He has been one of the loudest voices claiming that Bitmain is unable to innovate or is nearing bankruptcy.

One of the biggest criticisms about Samson Mow towards Bitmain is that the Chinese mining giant has been unable to innovate over the last few years. It’s been two years since Bitmain released their flagship Antminer S9. While other competitors have developed their own more powerful mining chips, Bitmain has been unable to match them.

That changed today when Bitmain announced its new next-generation 7nm ASIC chips.

Some people took Bitmain’s news with optimisms: the world’s biggest bitcoin mining hardware maker was announcing huge news after two years of limited innovation. Others, like Samson Mow, are greeting the news with skepticism.

In a series of tweets from earlier today, Samson Mow described how the news “may seem like a big deal and good news” for Bitmain, but in reality, “the announcement shows thing aren’t looking too good for Bitmain.”

Samson Mow isn’t some random crypto analyst. He is the current CSO of Blockstream. Prior to that position, Samson Mow was the COO at crypto exchange BTCC. As CSO of Blockstream, of course, Samson Mow has a natural bias against BCH-friendly entities like Bitmain and its CEO and co-founder Jihan Wu.

Here are some of the reasons Samson Mow is urging the community to be skeptical about Bitmain’s new 7nm chips:

• Samson Mow criticizes the release for being vague. The announcement doesn’t feature a launch date for the chips, for example. It simply claims Bitmain “will soon” mass produce 7nm chips. Developing 7nm chips is one thing. Actually mass producing those chips without issue at a competitive price is another hurdle that Bitmain needs to solve.
• Samson Mow also has problems with the claim that the 7nm chip “will include over a billion transistors.” Samson Mow claims this figure “sounds impressive to people outside the industry, but it’s not.” It’s like saying “the car will have 4 wheels,” according to Mow. 8nm or 10nm chips could also have a billion transistors, so this is a vague, meaningless statement.
• Mow takes issue with the “lab testing” statement made by Bitmain. Lab testing does not replicate real world testing. Bitmain was able to get 32J/TH energy efficiency in lab testing. However, it seems this was the best energy efficiency achieved during lab testing – not the average efficiency rating. It’s unclear what the average efficiency rating will be in real world conditions. Bitmain is also testing the ASIC chip itself – not an entire bitcoin miner.
• Mow also mentions that the S9’s chip was initially marketed as having an energy efficiency rating of 75J/TH. In real world situations, the S9 runs at around 98J/TH, or about 30% higher power consumption than reported in the lab. “So it’s likely the new Bitmain miner with 7nm chips runs at 55J/TH at best.”
• The difference between Bitmain and its competitors is obvious when you compare the WhatsMiner M10 launch to Bitmain’s announcement. The M10 announcement had a live demo with actual stats.
• The M10 is also a 16nm ASIC chip, and Mow claims 7nm chips are almost twice as expensive to produce as 16nm chips. Even if Bitmain is able to mass produce 7nm chips, they might fail to do so at a reasonable price. Cost per TH is everything to bitcoin miners.

Ultimately, Mow sums up his Twitter tirade with the following:

“TL;DR: Bitmain announced their new 7nm chip which isn’t that impressive. Efficiency of the miner isn’t going to be close to 42J/TH & it’s going to be expensive to produce. Oh, and Ebang is going to announce their new miner tomorrow.”

Even if Bitmain is successfully able to launch a 7nm chip, it still faces problems outside of its lack of in-house innovation. The company has faced criticism for rushing towards an IPO, for example. There are rumors of pre-IPO investors dropping out. There are even rumors of pre-IPO investors threatening to sue Bitmain for misrepresentation. Bitmain is also reportedly sitting on a hoard of 1 million BCH.

Amidst all of this ongoing controversy, Bitmain silenced the community by announcing its 7nm ASIC chip. Some members of the community, including vocal Bitmain critic Samson Mow, however, clearly aren’t buying it.

What do you guys think about Bitmain's latest announcement and Blockstream's Samson Mow ripping it to shreds? We also saw other news that is going to provide stiff competition for Bitmain in the coming weeks and months with BiteWei and Innosilicon both coming out with new bitcoin mining ASIC chips to rival and take on Bitmain who continues to find themselves in a complex situation.