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Progress report · Nov 12, 2026 · 3 min read

Seventeen months in Argentina, the air-cooled Antminer S23 still earns twice its power line

Bitmain's base air-cooled S23 has run at 6¢ since the generation was unveiled, never switched off and never needed cheaper power. Here is what 11 J/TH has banked so far, why the move to Nigeria is still ahead of it, and what the 2028 halving does to a machine with this much room.

An Antminer S23 against a deep oxblood studio backdrop

Bitmain Antminer S23 (318 TH/s)

Seventeen months at 6¢, and not one day off

A 318 TH/s Antminer S23 at 11 J/TH, the air-cooled base model of Bitmain's current generation, bought at $8,548 in May 2025, the week the S23 line was unveiled in Hong Kong, and landed in Argentina at $11,235. Before it shipped we argued its case from what the S19 and S21 had done. This is what it has actually done.

In 532 days at 6¢ it has mined and kept 0.0778 BTC, worth about $5,739 today, for $2,661 of electricity: about $34,200 one BTC over its life so far, and about $37,300 at today's difficulty. That is $3,078 of cashflow and roughly 27% of its landed cost, with every one of those 532 days spent in Argentina. It has never been switched off, and the crossing to cheaper power that every machine makes once is still ahead of it.

The move to cheaper power is the one thing every base Antminer eventually does. This one has not needed to.

Chart: BTC kept since May 2025, the electricity that made them, and where the forward figures put it by the April 2028 halving. One site, no moves, no gaps.

Why it has not needed Nigeria

A machine moves to cheap power when a year of figures says the cheaper site has become decisively the better home. For the S23 that year has not arrived, and the reason is the distance between what a petahash earns and what this machine's power costs.

At 6¢, an 11 J/TH machine spends about $15.84 a day for every petahash it runs. On 12 November 2026 the network paid about $31.40 per petahash per day on our hashprice chart, so the S23 earns roughly twice its own power line. The air-cooled S21, at 17.5 J/TH, has a line of $25.20 at the same site: it clears, but with a quarter of the room. That gap is why the S21 generation crossed to Nigeria and the S23 has not had to.

The air-cooled S23 reached buyers in January 2026 batches, so it is early in its life and we have not yet found an operator thread with a failure record for it; we score its build quality as unknown rather than good. Hosted in Argentina, a fault is repaired on site and billed at the cost of the parts, which is what turns an unknown into a line item.

Chart: Month by month at 6¢ in Argentina, at the prices of the day. Every month has cleared its electricity, through the 2026 trough included.

What the halving does to an 11 J/TH machine

Between now and April 2028, at today's difficulty and with bitcoin back at its previous high, the S23 has another 0.070 BTC in it, worth roughly $8,750. Added to what it has banked, that is about 1.1× its landed cost by the halving: machine, freight, duty, customs and setup covered from the BTC alone, with the machine still running on the other side.

The halving itself is the test. The subsidy halves, so at today's price and difficulty a petahash would earn about $15.70 a day afterwards, right on the S23's $15.84 line at 6¢. That is what Nigeria is for: at 3.9¢ the same machine's line is $10.30, and it clears with room. With bitcoin back at its previous high the arithmetic changes again and it clears at 6¢ as well. Either way an 11 J/TH machine has a second act, which is the whole point of buying efficiency: a 17.5 J/TH machine at 6¢ has no line it can clear after April 2028 at today's figures.

At today's difficulty and bitcoin back at its previous high, it covers its full landed cost by the halving and is still running afterwards.

Chart: What one BTC has cost it in electricity each month against what one BTC was worth. The gap is the room the halving will take half of.

What we would tell a buyer now

The base S23 is sold out in our store today, which is worth knowing before you go looking for one. The same silicon in a water loop, the S23 Hyd, makes one BTC for about $34,900 at our UAE site against the air model's $37,300, and hydro is where this generation's best figures live.

For anyone who cannot run water, the lesson of this machine is the lesson of its generation: the entry price is what you pay for the runway, and the runway is the part that survives a halving. Keep the BTC, pay the power in dollars, and let an 11 J/TH machine do what it has done here for seventeen months. Below are the machines in stock that make a cheaper BTC than it does.

What is in stock and makes a cheaper BTC, ranked on electricity per bitcoin.

Sources and further reading

Which machines this covers

The other side of this machine

What the Antminer S23 will do, judged by what the S19 and S21 did — The base air-cooled model of each Bitmain generation has followed the same arc for three cycles. Here is where the S23 lands if it follows the fourth — and on the numbers, it lands well.

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.