Bitmain Technologies, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer, may have earned more than chipmaker Nvidia in 2017, an analyst’s report estimated, as reported by CNBC.
The company co-founded by Jihan Wu may have made about $3 bln to $4 bln in operating profits in 2017, while Nvidia made about $3 bln during the same period, the report released by investment research company Bernstein shows.
Making estimates
Bernstein came up with the operating profit figure through looking at Bitmain’s orders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, who also supplies Nvidia.
It is notable that Bitmain took four years to achieve this level of profit, while it took Nvidia 24 years, the report said.
Bitmain’s miners use ASIC chips, designed specifically for Bitcoin mining. Before ASICs, GPUs were commonly used to mine Bitcoin. Nvidia is one of the largest makers of such GPUs.
Bitmain also runs AntPool, the world’s largest mining pool by hash power. Jihan Wu is AntPool’s CEO.
Tomiwabold Olajide
Dan Burgin
