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Progress report · Oct 27, 2026 · 5 min read

The Whatsminer M61 came within 38 cents of its power line, then crossed to Nigeria

MicroBT's 19 J/TH air-cooled M61 was bought in July 2025 with hashprice at $59.71. It fell to $27.74 in June 2026, 38 cents above the machine's 6¢ line, and it hashed through every day of it. It crossed once to Nigeria on 23 July 2026, and a halved hashprice would sit 19 cents over Nigeria's line.

Firsthand card: "The Whatsminer M61 came within 38 cents of its power line, then crossed to Nigeria", with the store photograph of the Whatsminer M61, 19 J/TH, 208 TH/s, air-cooled

MicroBT Whatsminer M61 (208 TH/s)

A 19 J/TH air-cooled Whatsminer, a year and a quarter in

The Whatsminer M61 is MicroBT's air-cooled 5 nm machine at 19 J/TH. Our store lists the 208 TH/s unit at 3,952 W. A retailer's listing for the family gives 202 TH/s in normal mode and 220 TH/s overclocked, air-cooled, on 5 nm chips, and dates the model to December 2024; MicroBT's own page for it could not be found, so those are the specs we state and nothing more is claimed about the hardware. ForkLog's report of MicroBT's December 2024 line-up names the M61S+ and M60S++ and not this model.

Bought once its price settled, on 24 July 2025, it cost $2,424 and was $3,580 landed at our Argentina site, where air-cooled machines start; the guide to what a miner costs all-in shows what sits on top of the box. In 461 days since it has mined and kept 0.0413 BTC, worth about $3,302 today, for $2,424 of electricity: $878 of cashflow, which is 25% of its landed cost. It is a step down from the M61S at 18.5 J/TH, whose own year is in its progress report.

Chart: Coins kept since July 2025, the electricity that made them, the move to Nigeria and where it lands by the 2028 halving.

Hashprice fell from $59.71 to $27.74, and the machine never reached its line

At 19 J/TH a petahash takes 456 kWh a day, so the machine's line, the hashprice at which it stops covering its own power, is $27.36 at 6¢ and $17.78 at Nigeria's 3.9¢. The guide to efficiency and halvings shows where that line sits at every J/TH.

Hashprice was $59.71 a petahash a day on 24 July 2025, the day it was bought, with bitcoin at $118,661. It reached its low for the whole stretch, $27.74, on 6 June 2026, and the M61 was never under its 6¢ line on any of the 460 days since. The closest it came was 38 cents above it. Hashprice was under $30 on 37 of those days, all in 2026: 9 in February, 6 in March, 14 in June and 8 in July.

In 460 days the machine never had a day under its own power line. The closest was 38 cents.

Chart: Network hashprice per petahash per day since the M61 was bought. Its 6¢ line is about $27 and Nigeria's about $18; the low of 6 June 2026 is the nearest it came to the first. Open the chart

In coins, a petahash earns 11% less than the day it was bought

The dollar figure fell by 40%, from $59.71 to $35.93 on 26 October, because bitcoin fell from $118,661 to $80,023. The coins did not. A petahash earned 0.000503 bitcoin a day on 24 July 2025 and 0.000449 on 26 October, 11% less, on our hashprice chart in bitcoin. The difficulty rises of the year took that share; the price took the rest of the dollars.

That is why a machine bought near the top can keep mining its coins through a lower dollar hashprice: it earns its share of the same 450 new bitcoin a day, and the coins it keeps are the ones that count.

It crossed to Nigeria on 23 July 2026, a day short of a year in

It ran 364 days in Argentina at 6¢. On 23 July 2026 it crossed to Nigeria, once, and only to cheaper power, when a trailing year of its own figures said the move paid decisively: a machine crosses to cheap power once. It has run 97 days there since, and has not been off for a day.

Nigeria mines fewer coins than Argentina because its uptime is lower, but it mines them for a third less. For a 19 J/TH machine that trade is worth a lot: at today's price and difficulty its first year returns about 39% in Nigeria against 22% in Argentina.

Chart: Profit over electricity, month by month, at the site it was actually at: Argentina to July 2026, then Nigeria (dashed line).

The tally after 461 days

It has mined and kept 0.0413 BTC for $2,424 of electricity, $58,748 a coin averaged across its life so far. That is a lifetime figure, shaped by a year at 6¢; the one to plan on is today's, and at 3.9¢ in Nigeria a coin now costs about $41,600 of electricity, against bitcoin at $79,541.

Valued at today's price, those coins less every dollar of power come to $878 of cashflow on a $3,580 landed cost: 25% of the box, from the coins alone, with every coin kept. At 461 days it is early in a working life measured in years, and the forward figures are what is left to run.

Chart: Every coin the M61 has mined and kept, and what they are worth held.

What the 2028 halving leaves it: 19 cents

Between now and the April 2028 halving it has about 0.037 BTC still in it at today's difficulty, worth roughly $4,629 with bitcoin back at its previous high of $124,493. That would bring it to about 1.5× its hardware by then. It is today's conditions held flat, not a forecast: every forward projection assumes the old high returns.

The halving is where the line matters. Hashprice was $35.93 on 26 October. Halved, that is $17.97, which is 19 cents over the M61's line at Nigeria's 3.9¢ and $9.39 under its line at 6¢. At today's price and difficulty a 19 J/TH machine is a machine for the run to April 2028, and after it one that needs Nigeria's power and a hashprice that has not moved. Efficiency decides how many halvings a machine survives, so the figure below ranks what the same money buys now by what a coin costs to make.

Halved, today's hashprice sits 19 cents above the M61's line at Nigeria's rate.

What the same money buys now, ranked on what a coin costs to make.

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.