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Field report · Oct 14, 2026 · 4 min read

Three years on, the Whatsminer M50 has paid for its box, and only Nigeria's power keeps it on

MicroBT's 28 J/TH M50 was bought in October 2023, six months before the halving, and mined nearly half its coins before it. Argentina's 6¢ stopped paying, it crossed once to Nigeria, and at 3.9¢ it has not had one day under its line.

Firsthand card: "Whatsminer M50", field report, 28 J/TH, 118 TH/s air-cooled, three years in, with the machine itself on a dark background

MicroBT Whatsminer M50 (118 TH/s)

A box bought for $1,437 has kept 0.0920 bitcoin

The Whatsminer M50 is MicroBT's air-cooled machine of 2022: 124 TH/s at 28 J/TH and 3,472 W on MicroBT's own shop page, in a 13.5 kg chassis, with a one-year warranty. The unit we follow is the 118 TH/s bin, which our store lists at 3,304 W.

Bought once its price settled, on 17 October 2023, it cost $1,437. Landed at our Argentina site, the all-in cost was $2,568. In 1,085 days since it has mined and kept 0.0920 BTC, worth about $7,523 today, for $3,833 of electricity. That is $3,690 of cashflow, or 144% of its landed cost, with every coin kept: it has paid for its box 1.4× over.

Chart: Coins kept since October 2023, the electricity that made them, the move to Nigeria and where it lands by the 2028 halving.

The halving came 186 days in, and nearly half its coins came before it

The machine was bought six months before the April 2024 halving. In the 186 days before it, it kept 0.0419 BTC, 46% of everything it has mined, in 17% of its life so far. A petahash earned $59.81 a day on the day we bought it, and $123.75 on 21 April 2024, the day after the halving, on our hashprice chart.

After it, the machine kept 0.0501 BTC in 899 days. Its cash margin, after electricity, was about $5.67 a day before the halving and about $1.27 a day after. A machine bought before a halving is paid for in advance by the months before it, and the M50 was.

Chart: Network hashprice per petahash per day since the M50 was bought. The spike around the April 2024 halving is the stretch in which it made nearly half its coins. Open the chart

At 28 J/TH, the power price is the whole story

A machine's line is the hashprice at which it stops covering its own power. At 28 J/TH a petahash uses 672 kWh a day: $40.32 at Argentina's 6¢, and $26.21 at Nigeria's 3.9¢. Hashprice was under the Argentine line on 7 of the 177 days between September 2024 and the move. The machine stood switched off for 9 days from 20 September 2024, then ran 148 more days in Argentina before crossing.

On 25 February 2025 it made its one move, to Nigeria, after 488 days in Argentina. A crossing is freight, customs and downtime at both ends, so a machine makes it once and does not shuttle, which is the rule in a machine crosses to cheap power once. It has run 597 days there.

Since the move, hashprice has been under the Argentine line on 320 of 597 days, so at 6¢ the machine would have lost money on more than half of them. It has not once been under Nigeria's line. The lowest day was $27.74 on 6 June 2026, which cleared it by 6%.

At 6¢ the same machine would have been under water on 320 of those 597 days. At 3.9¢ it was above its line on every one.

Chart: Profit over electricity, month by month: Argentina's 6¢, then Nigeria's 3.9¢ after the move.

What is left, and what the halving does to it

Today a coin costs it about $57,800 of electricity at Nigeria's 3.9¢, against a bitcoin price of $83,306. At 6¢ the same coin would cost about $88,900, which is more than a coin is worth, and that is why the machine lives where it does. A new owner would see 14% in a first year in Nigeria and -4% at 6¢.

The April 2028 halving halves the coins a petahash earns. At today's price and difficulty that puts hashprice near $19.87, under even the Nigerian line of $26.21. A machine that no site can pay for is switched off rather than mined at a loss, and it keeps every coin it has made. The forward figures to that date add 0.023 BTC, worth about $2,852 with bitcoin back at $124,493, which would take cashflow to about 2.5× the landed cost. That is today's conditions held flat, apart from the price, which every forward projection assumes recovers.

What it says about the next machine you buy

Machines are the roof, not the building, as the roof guide puts it: the test is whether a machine earned enough to buy its replacement. The M50 has banked $3,690 after electricity against a $2,568 landed cost. We found no operator threads or repair write-ups on this machine to cite, so reliability is unknown rather than good, and MicroBT's one-year warranty ran out long ago.

The arithmetic for its replacement is plain. A machine at 13.5 J/TH has a line of $19.44 at 6¢, under a halved hashprice, so it keeps clearing at 6¢ after the halving where the M50 cannot clear even at 3.9¢. The figure below ranks what we would put in its place today, on cost per coin and then year-one return.

What we would put in its place today, ranked on cost per coin and then year-one return.

Sources and further reading

Which machines this covers

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.