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Progress report · Oct 21, 2026 · 4 min read
The Whatsminer M61S+ cleared its power line every day for 14 months, then crossed to Nigeria
Bought in August 2025 with bitcoin at $113,264, the 17 J/TH M61S+ needs $24.48 of hashprice a petahash a day to cover its power at 6¢. The lowest reading in the 14 months since was $27.74. Here is what it has banked, why it crossed to Nigeria, and what the forward figures say.
MicroBT Whatsminer M61S+ (232 TH/s)
Fourteen months in, and every coin kept
The Whatsminer M61S+ is MicroBT's air-cooled machine at 17 J/TH. Forklog reported it on 9 December 2024 as "the air-cooled WhatsMiner M61S+ (236 TH/s)", one of three models with "an energy efficiency of 17 J/TH". The unit we list is 232 TH/s from 3,944 W, which is our store record: we could not open MicroBT's own page.
Bought at the first price we hold for it, $3,240 in August 2025, and landed at $4,600 at our Argentina site, it has run 427 days. It has mined and kept 0.0440 BTC, worth $3,600 today, for $2,401 of electricity. That is $1,199 of cashflow, or 26% of its landed cost, with 0 days switched off, a little over a quarter of the way through a four-year life.
The power line was never in play
A machine's line is the hashprice at which it stops covering its own power. At 17 J/TH a petahash uses 408 kWh a day, so the M61S+'s line is $24.48 at Argentina's 6¢. Network hashprice was $55.41 a petahash a day on 21 August 2025, the day it was bought. The lowest reading since was $27.74 on 6 June 2026, $3.26 above the line.
On none of the 426 days from purchase to 20 October did hashprice on our hashprice chart fall to $24.48. A machine that is switched off keeps every coin it has mined, and this one never needed to stop. A coin has cost it about $54,600 of electricity over the whole run, a lifetime average that includes the months before the crossing.
In 426 days of hashprice readings, none fell to the M61S+'s power line at 6¢.
It crossed to Nigeria on 15 September 2026
After 390 days in Argentina it made the one move every machine we host makes: on 15 September 2026 it went to Nigeria, where power costs 3.9¢ instead of 6¢. It has spent 37 days there since. The rule is a trailing year in which cheap power is decisively better, and the guide to crossing once explains why it is made only once. The M61S crossed after the same year.
Nigeria's uptime is lower than Argentina's, 73.6% against 98.7% on our sites page, so it mines fewer coins a day. It pays 35% less for the power. Today a coin costs this machine about $37,200 in Nigeria against $57,200 in Argentina, and its first-year return at today's price is about 43% against 33%.
What is left in it
At today's difficulty, and with bitcoin back at its previous high of $124,493, it has another 0.042 BTC in it before the April 2028 halving, worth about $5,226. That would leave it at roughly 1.4× its landed cost covered by the halving, and still running.
The halving is where the crossing earns its keep. Hashprice was $36.79 on 20 October, and halved at an unchanged price and difficulty it would be near $18.40. That is under the M61S+'s $24.48 line at 6¢ and above its $15.91 line at 3.9¢. At 17 J/TH it is a Nigeria machine from here on, which is where it is. How efficiency decides how many halvings a machine survives shows where the line sits at every J/TH.
The entry price has moved; the machine has not
The first price we hold for the 232 TH/s unit, on 21 August 2025, was $13.97 a terahash. We hold no price from then until March 2026, when it was $9.24, so the chart joins two ends of a gap. In September it sat between $7.04 and $7.14. It is $1,656 today, $7.14 a terahash, for the same 232 TH/s at the same 17 J/TH, within a few cents of the lowest we hold, $7.04 on 5 August 2026. The hashrate a buyer gets is the hashrate it always was.
That is the case in the M61S+ review. A buyer who wants more return on the money should look at what the figure below ranks above it on cost per coin and then first-year return, in stock today. A coin that costs less to make is a coin you keep more of.
- MicroBT Whatsminer M74S+ (332 TH/s) — 12 J/TH, In stock, $40,384 of electricity per bitcoin, 33% year one
- MicroBT Whatsminer M73S (560 TH/s) — 13 J/TH, In stock, $43,749 of electricity per bitcoin, 37% year one
- MicroBT Whatsminer M70S (258 TH/s) — 13.5 J/TH, In stock, $45,432 of electricity per bitcoin, 32% year one
Sources and further reading
- MicroBT unveils new line of bitcoin miners — Forklog, 9 Dec 2024
Which machines this covers
The other side of this machine
Whatsminer M61S+ review: 17 J/TH in an air-cooled box at the best entry price it has had — MicroBT's M61S+ is an air-cooled machine that makes a bitcoin on 17 J/TH, with 232 TH/s in a single unit. It clears its power at 6¢ with room today, and at its lowest price per terahash yet it is a sound way to add hashrate. Cheaper power is where it pays most.
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.