Key Takeaways
- ZEC clocked $979 on Sept. 3, logging a significant 88.1% gain over the past 30 days.
- Zcash hashrate is sitting at 91% of its record as a great deal of mining power pours in.
- Bitmain’s Z15 Pro makes $59.09 a day, but a ZEC price drop could flip the script fast.
Zcash Price Blasts to $979 as Mining Power Hits Peak Levels
On Thursday, ZEC’s price soared to a new zenith, reaching $979 and rising nearly 17% during the last day. Over the past two weeks, ZEC has risen 64.7%, and 30-day stats show an 88.1% rise against the U.S. dollar. Stretch it back to six months, and zcash rose around 353% higher. This constant surge in dollar value has fueled the Zcash hashrate, and Bitcoin.com News reported on the network coasting along at 27.87 GSol/s.
Zcash Hashrate Coasts Along Near All-Time Highs
GSol/s stands for gigasolutions per second as ZEC’s proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm is Equihash, and the protocol’s miners solve single computational puzzles or solutions as their work. A single GSol/s means 1,000,000,000 solutions per second or Sol/s. Following that mining report published on Aug. 25, coinwarz.com data shows the network’s hashrate peaked on Aug. 28, reaching 27.9 GSol/s at block height 3,463,689.
At press time on Sept. 3, the network’s computational power is operating at 91% compared to its all-time high. There’s a reason why the Zcash network is seeing peak highs in hashrate, and that is due to the fact that ZEC’s price has recorded massive gains. In turn, this has amplified ZEC mining profitability and put zcash mining rigs on a pedestal. Data collected on Thursday evening shows that the most profitable application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miner today is Bitmain’s Z15 Pro, a ZEC miner.
Bitmain’s Z15 Pro Takes the Mining Profitability Crown
The Z15 Pro is an upgrade from the original Z15, which produces around 420 KSol/s while the new miner produces 840 KSol/s. Bitmain’s shop, however, does not have any available as the Z15 Pro is sold out, and the older Z15 is not available in the shop either. While the Antminer Z15 Pro and Z15 cannot be acquired via Bitmain, Bitcoin.com News did find Z15 Pro resellers selling the unit for a premium above Bitmain’s $4,999 list price.
Using current zcash (ZEC) prices, a Z15 Pro is estimated to make around $59.09 per day, per asicminervalue.com, while the Z15 stands at around $29.25 in daily profit. While the Z15 Pro is the most profitable, the Z15 is the fourth-highest-earning ASIC on the market.
Bitmain does offer a mid-range machine that produces 525 KSol/s, which is the Antminer Z15K. At current ZEC prices, the Z15K unit gets an estimated $35.14 per day. That machine too is not available for purchase on Bitmain’s shop. Interestingly, the third most profitable ASIC mines monero (XMR), another privacy token seeing a massive price rise as well.
The profitability in ZEC and XMR mining is less about a privacy vision and more about what makes money. The fact is, ZEC’s mining rewards are quite profitable, and it is natural for hashpower to pour in at a massive rate. But if ZEC’s price takes a hit, a lot of that hashpower can disappear just as quickly.
