The S23 Hyd makes the cheapest bitcoin we have ever measured

About a third less electricity per coin than anything from the S21 generation. Fifteen months of running one, and what 9.5 J/TH does to the arithmetic.

An Antminer S23 Hyd photographed in a chiller plant room

Bitmain Antminer S23 Hyd (563 TH/s)

The number that separates it

A 563 TH/s S23 Hyd at 9.5 J/TH, running at our UAE site since May 2025. Over 525 days it has mined and kept 0.1370 BTC for $4,374 of electricity. That is $31,930 a coin — and at today’s difficulty the figure is about $35,000.

For context, at the same 6¢ the S21 Pro makes a coin for roughly $53,200, and an S19K Pro for about $81,600. The S23 Hyd is not incrementally better than its predecessors. It is a third cheaper per coin, which is the largest single-generation step we have measured.

At today’s difficulty it makes a coin for $35,000 at 6¢ — about a third less than the S21 generation.

Chart: Coins kept and the electricity that made them, with the forward figures to the 2028 halving.

Where it is in its life

The catch is the entry. It landed at $16,990, and its running so far has covered about 37% of it — $6,221 of cashflow. That is a slower start in percentage terms than a cheap machine posts, and it is what buying the front of a generation costs you.

What you get for it is runway. At today’s difficulty and with bitcoin back at its previous high it has another 0.127 BTC and roughly $15,778 in it before April 2028, among the largest forward values of anything we host. And at 9.5 J/TH the 2028 halving does not retire it — a machine this efficient still clears at 6¢ afterwards, which almost nothing else from the current floor can say.

Chart: What a coin has cost it each month, against what a coin was worth.

Who it is for

This is the machine for somebody buying once and keeping it — where the decision is about the next five years rather than the next eighteen months. The capital is real and the payback is slower in percentage terms than a discounted S21, but the cost of each coin is in a different class and stays there through a halving.

It needs a water loop, which is why it runs in the UAE: our hydro and immersion site, with a manufacturer warranty centre close enough that an in-warranty board is a short trip rather than a shipment. If yours does not, the air-cooled S23 is the same silicon in a form your site can take.

Chart: We paid $15,133 in May 2025. The same machine costs $13,242 today — a cheaper way into the most efficient hardware we host.

Which machines this covers

The other side of this machine

Bitmain Antminer S23 Hyd review — The second-most efficient hydro machine we stock, 563 TH/s from 5,349 W at 9.5 J/TH, in Bitmain's newest single-box water-cooled chassis. It has run in our UAE water plant since May 2025, and no public failure record exists for it yet — the honest gap in an otherwise strong machine.

Disclosure

Firsthand Bitcoin sells and hosts mining hardware, including this machine. No manufacturer, distributor or affiliate programme paid for or reviewed this page and we take no commission on the links above. Historical figures are computed from daily bitcoin price and network hashprice, each day valued at its own prices. Nothing here is investment advice.