Top-tier mining rigs that once looked out of reach are now being pushed by Bitmain itself into the era of “fire-sale” pricing.

According to recently leaked internal quotes, Bitmain’s price cuts look almost self-destructive.

Models such as the S19e XP Hydro and 3U S19 XP Hydro have been marked down to $3 per TH/s; the slightly newer S19 XP+ Hydro is selling for only around $4 per TH/s.

Even at the market’s worst moments, machines with this level of performance had never been this cheap.

More strikingly, even the S21 series, once seen as Bitmain’s core lineup, has not been spared: the S21+ Hydro is only about $8.

Earlier, the company rolled out a bundled S19 XP+ Hydro package that worked out to roughly $4 per TH/s, and in November it used an auction-style sale for the S19k Pro with a starting price of $5.5 per TH/s.

At the same time, Bitmain has stepped up “mining rig + hosting” bundled sales, with hosted power prices of about 5.5 to 7 cents per kWh plus a 0.3-cent management fee, covering locations including the United States, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Paraguay and Ethiopia.

What does that price really mean?

If you are a veteran miner, your first reaction to this quote is probably not excitement, but a chill down your spine.

The Logic Behind the Frenzied Sell-Off

Why would Bitmain lower itself into this near auction-style fire sale?

On the surface, it is clearing inventory and bringing cash back in. But the deeper logic exposes the brutal reality of the mining rig market: the efficiency race has already run into a dead end.

In November, Bitmain even put the S19k Pro into an auction with a starting price of $5.5.

This sales model essentially hands pricing power to the market. It also shows that manufacturers know perfectly well that, at the old prices, the machines no longer move.

In today’s mining world, network difficulty is rising almost irrationally, while post-halving revenue has been cut in half. For Bitmain, every old machine sitting in inventory loses value by the day. If it cannot turn them into cash before they become outright scrap metal, hundreds of millions, or even billions, of yuan in goods become bad debt.

The Bundle Behind the Bundle

This round of price cuts includes one especially telling move: the aggressive push of “mining rig + hosting” bundled sales.

Bitmain no longer wants to simply ship you a pile of “iron blocks” and call it a day. It now offers a full-service package: the United States, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Paraguay, Ethiopia, wherever power is cheap, that is where the machines go.

Power prices are pushed down to around 5.5 to 7 cents, with another 0.3-cent management fee. It is a rather sharp move.

• For miners: the machines look cheaper, the power price looks acceptable, and the payback period seems shorter.

• For Bitmain: it sells you the machine at a discount, but uses hosting to lock you, your equipment and your cash flow into its ecosystem.

This is not simply selling mining rigs. It is selling admission tickets to a “computing power labor camp.”

When Hardware Loses Its Premium, the Real Game Begins

Bitmain’s sharp price drop has torn away the mining industry’s last fig leaf: the hardware dividend is over.

In the past, if you could get the first batch of the newest mining rigs, you won.

Now? The contest is over who has cheaper power, who can tolerate lower net margins, and whose balance sheet can survive the next winter.

By selling the S19 series at $3 or $4, Bitmain is essentially harvesting future computing power in advance.

This lose-lose price war will quickly clear out small and mid-sized secondary distributors, pushing the mining rig market into the final phase of oligopoly.

In this industry, when manufacturers start begging you to buy machines, even using low prices and hosting to lock you in, it means the harvester is already at your doorstep.

Bitmain’s “price-cutting playbook” has drawn miners a pie labeled “short payback period.” But do not forget: the person sitting at the top of this pyramid is always the one dealing the cards.

If mining rigs can no longer create a premium through generational technology gaps, are these dumped “scrap-metal” machines a ladder to wealth, or tombstones miners are preparing for themselves?

That depends on whether you are betting on a few percentage points of profit, or on the fading afterimage of an era.