Guide · Oct 13, 2026 · 6 min read
How long does a bitcoin miner last, and what ends its working life?
A mining machine does not wear out on a date. It stops when a day of running it costs more than the coins it makes. Four machines on cheap power ran six to eight years before that day came, and a four-step check tells you where yours stands.
Short answer: until it stops paying, and on cheap power that took six to eight years
The question every first-time buyer asks is how long the machine will last. The honest answer is not a number of years. A miner is a computer built for one job, and it keeps doing the job until the electricity it burns costs more than the bitcoin it earns. That day arrives sooner on expensive power and later on cheap power, and it arrives sooner for a less efficient machine.
We have worked this through for four real machines from the moment they first shipped, on 3.9¢ power, and each one ran for a little over six years to nearly eight. The longest, the Antminer S9, shipped in June 2016 and stopped paying in April 2024. We plan on four years for every machine we sell, and treat anything after that as extra.
The rest of this guide shows how to find that day for any machine, using three numbers you already have from the spec sheet and today's hashprice.
A miner is switched off when a day costs more than it earns
Nothing in a mining machine runs out on a schedule. The chips keep hashing, the fans keep turning, and parts that fail are replaced, which is a normal cost of running any industrial equipment. What does change is the sum around it: how many coins one unit of hashing earns in a day, and what the power for that unit costs.
A machine that earns less than its power costs is not broken. It is simply not worth switching on that day. If the sum turns positive again, because bitcoin rose or fees jumped, it is switched back on. The machines in the table below were switched on and off through their last year or more before the final day came. A machine's life ends on the last day its trailing month still paid, if it never came back after.
That is why the coins already mined are never at risk. Switching a machine off stops new coins arriving, and every coin it has produced stays in your wallet.
Find the line in three steps
Every machine has a break-even line: the hashprice at which it exactly covers its own power. Hashprice is what one petahash per second of mining earns in a day, and you can read it on our hashprice chart. It was $39.87 on 12 October 2026.
Step one: work out how much power a petahash costs you in a day. A petahash is a thousand terahashes, and a day has 24 hours, so the power in kilowatt-hours is the machine's efficiency in J/TH times 24. A machine at 13.5 J/TH uses 324 kWh per petahash per day.
Step two: multiply by your power rate. At 6¢ that is $19.44; at 3.9¢ it is $12.64. Step three: compare it with hashprice. If hashprice is above the line, the machine makes money after power that day. If it is below, it does not. The guide to electricity and the power price shows the same sum for a whole machine.
| Efficiency | Line at 6¢ a petahash a day | Line at 3.9¢ a petahash a day | Against hashprice halved from today (about $19.94) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 J/TH | $12.96 | $8.42 | Clears at both rates |
| 13.5 J/TH | $19.44 | $12.64 | Clears at both rates, narrowly at 6¢ |
| 17 J/TH | $24.48 | $15.91 | Clears only at 3.9¢ |
| 21.5 J/TH | $30.96 | $20.12 | Level at 3.9¢, does not clear at 6¢ |
Four machines, from the first shipment to the last day
We followed four Antminers from the day they first shipped to the last day they paid for their power at 3.9¢, with 95% uptime and a 2% pool fee, switching them off on any day they would lose money. Each has its own report with every figure: the S9, S15, S17 and T17.
The pattern is the same in all four. Each ran through its first years with room to spare, then the line caught up with hashprice. The three newer ones each ran every day through to the end of 2023, then met their end after the April 2024 halving, which halved the coins every machine earns for the same power. The S9 had already spent much of 2020 and 2023 switched off, and its last profitable month came in April 2024, eight days after that halving.
The last column is the point. Each machine stopped when hashprice dropped under the line it needed. The S9 needed about $99 a petahash a day and a petahash was earning about $52. The S17, at 45 J/TH, needed about $45 against about $42. A few J/TH set the date.
| Machine | Efficiency | First shipped | Last day it paid at 3.9¢ | Needed against earned (a petahash a day) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S9 | 98 J/TH | 12 June 2016 | 28 April 2024 | about $99 against about $52 |
| Antminer S15 | 57 J/TH | December 2018 | 25 August 2025 | about $57 against about $54 |
| Antminer S17 | 45 J/TH | 9 April 2019 | 12 November 2025 | about $45 against about $42 |
| Antminer T17 | 55 J/TH | May 2019 | 8 September 2025 | about $55 against about $52 |
What ends a life is the halving and the power rate, not wear
Look at the hashprice chart over a longer stretch and the shape is clear. It falls over the years as more machines join the network and it halves at every halving, then rises when bitcoin does. Each fall lifts the line a machine has to clear, so the least efficient machines drop out first.
This is why efficiency is the first number on a spec sheet, and why the guide to efficiency and halvings is the longer version of this one. At 98 J/TH the S9 needed a hashprice that stopped existing in 2024. A 9 J/TH machine today has a line of $12.96 at 6¢, which is a third of today's hashprice and still under a halved one.
Power rate does the other half. The same machine at 3.9¢ has a line a third lower than at 6¢. That is why a machine in our network crosses to cheap power once, while it still clears its power at the first site, instead of waiting to be switched off: the guide to crossing to cheap power explains when.
A machine's life is set on the day you buy it, by its efficiency and the rate you pay.
What can end a machine early, and why it is a budget line
Every machine can develop a fault. The control board, a fan, a power supply or a hashboard can fail, and that is what repair and warranty terms exist for. In Argentina we repair on site and bill the cost of the parts only. In the UAE a manufacturer warranty centre is close to the facility. The guide to failed hashboards explains why a fault in a managed facility is a line in a budget.
A fault is not what sets the end date in this guide's four examples. The reports follow a machine that keeps working, so the date comes from the economics alone. A machine that is kept cool and repaired when a part fails is the one that reaches that date.
Heat is the main enemy of any electronics, which is why a site's cooling matters as much as the machine's own. The guide to air, hydro and immersion shows how the three kinds differ.
Three questions to answer before you buy
First: what is the line for this machine at the rate you will actually pay? Take its J/TH, multiply by 24 and by your rate, and compare it with hashprice today. The further below hashprice the line sits, the more room the machine has.
Second: does it clear a halved hashprice? The next halving is expected in April 2028. If the line is under $19.94 at your rate, the machine keeps paying through it at today's price and difficulty. If it is over, the machine needs a lower rate, which means a different site, or bitcoin to recover. Every projection we publish assumes the old high returns, and says so.
Third: what is the plan for the cheaper power? Most machines make one move, to the cheapest site, after a year or more. A machine bought with that move in mind has a longer life than one bought for a single site. Output is not guaranteed, and hashprice moves every day.
What it means for a miner
A machine's working life is not a warranty period or a number on the box. It is the gap between its line and hashprice, and you can measure the gap before you buy. Efficiency and the power rate set it; the halvings move it.
That is also why we think of machines as the roof of the operation, not the building: they are replaced out of what they earn, as the roof and the building guide describes. The coins mined along the way are what stays. Keep them, as nobody sells the coins to pay the power bill sets out, and the day a machine switches off is the day its work is already done.
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.