The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given. Most pages were read on 10 October 2026; store prices and several other pages were read again on 13 October, and the text says which date a figure belongs to.
The claim
Our collection holds one tweet on this scheme, not the usual dozens1. So this page rests on that one worked example and on how the method is promoted generally, on the pages of the companies that sell it. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweet about it.
“ZEC mining is still on fire! Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro 840k are still making $18,720 per year. Bitmain Antminer Z15k 565k are still making $11,520 per year. Extrapolate that math with 5 units of each. That is $151,200 per year simply by mining. Name another passive” (cut off here as collected; a link follows)
@MuskMiners, 6 October 2026 (date worked out from the tweet’s ID number), 21 views1
The account has 5,401 followers1. We name it because the store muskminers.com links to this X account from the footer of its pages, and those pages list the two machines in the tweet for sale and offer to host them1112. We did not open the account’s profile, the link in the tweet, or any image attached to it, so anything shown there is unknown to us.
The tweet’s text gives no machine price, no electricity or hosting cost, and no coin price. It does not say whether “making” means income before costs or profit1.
What the scheme is
Some cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Zcash (traded under the short code ZEC), are kept running by “mining”. Computers race to solve a puzzle. Whoever solves it adds the next block of transactions and receives newly issued coins.
An ASIC miner is a machine built to do one such puzzle and nothing else. “ASIC” means a chip designed for a single task. The machines in the tweet solve the puzzle Zcash uses, called Equihash, and cannot mine Bitcoin15.
“Hosting” means the buyer does not keep the machine at home. A company runs it in a warehouse with cheap electricity and bills the buyer for the power. Miners usually join a “pool”, a group that shares rewards in proportion to each member’s computing power, and the pool takes a fee18.
The pitch is passive income: pay once, and the machine sends coins every day. The mechanism is real. The question is what the daily figure is made of, and how long it lasts.
The arithmetic
Step 1: check the tweet’s sum
5 x $18,720 + 5 x $11,520 = $93,600 + $57,600 = $151,200. The multiplication is right1.
The tweet’s figures equal $52 a day for the larger machine and $32 a day for the smaller one, over a 360-day year (our sums)1.
Step 2: is the per-machine figure real?
As income before costs, it was close to real on the days we looked. The calculators did not agree with each other and moved between our two reads, so we give a range.
- ASIC Miner Value, a calculator and price-tracking site, estimated on 10 October that a Z15 Pro mines 0.0344 ZEC a day, ”≈ $41.45 /day”, and a Z15K 0.0232 ZEC, ”≈ $27.88 /day”23. On 13 October it showed 0.0344 ZEC, ”≈ $40.60 /day”, for the Z15 Pro2. Its home-page ranking was higher: with electricity added back, about $48 to $49 on 10 October and about $56 on 13 October (our sums)66. So the site does not agree with itself. Its income table also showed $0.00 for both machines, which looks like a fault23.
- WhatToMine, a second calculator, gave 0.0397 ZEC or $48.98 a day for a machine of the Z15 Pro’s speed on 10 October, and $48.66 on 13 October4.
- minerstat gave “about $49.96 per day” on 10 October and “about $55.81 per day” on 13 October. That figure prices the machine’s power as sold on a marketplace called NiceHash, not Zcash mined directly5.
So income before electricity for the Z15 Pro was about $41 to $50 a day on 10 October and about $41 to $56 on 13 October. For the Z15K it was about $28 to $33 on 10 October. Over a year at the 10 October figures that is about $15,100 to $18,200 and $10,200 to $12,000 (our sums).
The tweet’s $52 a day for the larger machine is at or slightly above the top of what calculators showed that week, and its $32 for the smaller one is inside the range. They match income before electricity, not profit.
Step 3: what the figure multiplies
A machine’s daily income is three numbers multiplied together:
- Its share of all the mining power. A Z15 Pro runs at 840 thousand “solutions per second”, the measure of mining speed for Zcash. The whole Zcash network ran at about 29 to 34 billion on 10 October, depending on the source and the moment49. One machine is under 0.003% of the network (our sum).
- The coins issued to miners. This is fixed by Zcash’s rules: miners receive 1.25 ZEC per block, and a block comes about every 75 seconds41819. That is about 1,440 ZEC a day for all miners together (our sum: 86,400 seconds / 75 x 1.25). More machines do not create more coins. They split the same coins more thinly.
- The price of the coin. $1,233 when we read it on 10 October 2026; CoinGecko’s daily figure for that date is $1,2056.
The first and third numbers change every day. The tweet takes one day’s result and multiplies by 360.
Step 4: the machines
On 13 October 2026 the store listed the Z15 Pro 840k at $9,450 and the Z15K 565k at $9,500121568. Our first read on 10 October recorded $9,750 for the Z15K; we could not re-check that figure, so we use the later one.
Our sum for the tweet’s ten machines: 5 x $9,450 + 5 x $9,500 = $94,750. Paying by card on the website adds a 3.5% fee; bank transfer does not13.
Five notes on this figure:
- The machines on sale start months from now. On 13 October the Z15 Pro page offered three variants: “March Batch”, “January Batch” and “Ready to SHIP”. “Ready to SHIP” showed “Out of Stock”, and $9,450 was the price displayed with “March Batch” selected15. The Z15K page offered only “January Batch”68. Stock may have been different on 10 October. A machine delivered in January or March starts earning three to five months after payment, at whatever the network size is then.
- The store’s pages give different specifications from the tracker’s. The store’s page titled “Antminer Z15K 565k” describes “a maximum hashrate of 525ksol/s for a power consumption of 2483W”68. If the unit runs at 525 thousand, the Z15K income in our sums is about 7% too high (our sum). Its Z15 Pro page says 840 to 860 thousand solutions per second and 2,560 watts, against the tracker’s 2,780 watts152.
- Other vendors. On 10 October ASIC Miner Value showed the Z15K 565k from about $8,500 to $9,000 at other vendors366. For the Z15 Pro it showed $13,400 for a unit in stock and $9,254 for January 2027 delivery2. A $7,250 listing for March 2027 seen on 10 October was gone on 13 October.
- Shipping. The store’s shipping page lists $180 per miner for 7 to 13 kg and $250 above that67. Both Zcash machines are listed at 5.9 kg, which no tier covers, and we could not tell whether hosted machines are charged at all1568.
- No refunds. The store says “all sales are final & non-refundable”14.
Step 5: hosting, pool fee and tax
Hosting. The store charges 8 cents per kWh (kilowatt-hour, the unit of electricity on a bill) on a 12-month contract and says this is “an all in cost” with no service or racking fees11. ASIC Miner Value lists the Z15 Pro at 2,780 watts2. Our sum: 2.78 kW x 24 hours x $0.08 = $5.34 a day, about $1,948 a year. The store’s own page gives 2,560 watts, which would make it $4.92 a day, about $1,794 a year15. We use the higher figure.
For the Z15K the tracker gives two power figures: 2,483 watts in its specification box, which is also the store’s figure, and 2,672 watts in its own profit sum368. That makes hosting about $1,740 to $1,870 a year per Z15K. For the ten machines: about $17,700 to $19,100 a year (our sums).
One open point: the store’s hosting FAQ names only Bitcoin and Litecoin/Dogecoin models, while the Zcash machines appear under “Hostable ASICs” on the same page11. We could not confirm the hosting price for Zcash machines specifically.
Pool fee. ViaBTC, a large Zcash pool, charges 2% under one way of paying miners and 4% of the block subsidy (the newly issued coins in each block) under another18. At 2%, that is about $2,500 to $3,000 a year on the ten machines (our sum).
Tax. In the United States, mined coins count as income at their market value on the day they arrive, sold or not: “the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income”22. A miner who keeps coins that later fall in price still owes tax on the higher value. We did not check other countries.
Step 6: the result today, and what moves it
Our estimate at the figures of 10 October 2026, at both ends of the calculators’ range:
| Per year, ten machines running all year | Low end | High end |
|---|---|---|
| Income before costs234 | about $126,500 | about $149,500 |
| Hosting at 8 cents per kWh, higher power ratings11 | -$19,100 | -$19,100 |
| Pool fee at 2%18 | about -$2,500 | about -$3,000 |
| Left before tax, repairs and downtime (our estimate) | about $105,000 | about $127,000 |
The low end uses ASIC Miner Value’s coin estimates; the high end uses WhatToMine’s figure, scaled by speed for the Z15K. The store’s lower power ratings would add about $1,400 to either column. The result is about 16% to 31% below the tweet’s figure.
On $94,750 of machines that is 9 to 11 months of running to repay the purchase. The count starts on the day the machines start, not the day of payment, and it holds only if the coin price and the number of competing machines both stay frozen.
Neither has stayed still:
- Price. Zcash was about $230 in mid-October 2025 and about $697 on 17 November 202576. It then fell to about $197 on 8 March 2026, a drop of about 72% in under four months. It was about $673 on 21 May, $502 on 7 August and $830 on 2 September, peaked at $1,653 on 27 September, and stood near $1,205 to $1,233 on 10 October6. The tweet was written about nine days after the one-year high16.
- Competition. The network’s mining power averaged about 8.6 to 9.4 billion solutions per second in the Octobers of 2023, 2024 and 2025. It was about 14 billion in January 2026, about 20 to 22.6 billion in mid-July (22.6 on 18 July, the last point in that chart), and 29 to 34 billion on 10 October849. “Difficulty”, the measure of how thinly rewards are shared, averaged 86.8 million in October 20259. On 10 October 2026 it moved between about 267 and 316 million, with a 24-hour average near 279 million49. It roughly doubled between May and October 20269.
So each machine now earns about 70% fewer coins than a year ago (our sum: 86.8 / 279). Dollar income held up only because the price rose faster.
Rival machines did not switch off when the price fell. Average difficulty stayed between about 123 and 126 million from December 2025 to April 20269. Archived copies of the calculator show a Z15 Pro’s profit after power, at the site’s standard 10 cents per kWh, going from $35.74 a day on 27 December 2025 to $15.13 on 11 March 202610.
The table shows what one Z15 Pro leaves each month at different Zcash prices, keeping today’s network size. All rows are our estimate. They start from 0.037 ZEC a day, the middle of the calculators’ range on 10 October, less a 2% pool fee and 8-cent hosting241118. The machine price is kept at $9,450 in every row, although machine prices fall when the coin does.
| Zcash price | When it was last there6 | One Z15 Pro, per month after hosting and pool fee | Machines for $1,000 a month | Machines for $10,000 a month | Cost of those machines at $9,450 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,233 | 10 October 2026 | about $1,200 | 1 | 9 | $85,050 |
| $830 | 2 September 2026 | about $750 | 2 | 14 | $132,300 |
| $500 | mid-August 2026 | about $390 | 3 | 26 | $245,700 |
| $229 | late March to early April 2026 | about $90 | 12 | 111 | $1,048,950 |
For the tweet’s ten machines, the same method leaves about $36,000 to $37,000 a year at a Zcash price of $500 and about $6,000 to $7,000 a year at $229 (our estimate). At $229 the machines would take more than ten years to repay.
Zcash’s rules also halve the miners’ reward at fixed intervals19. We estimate the next halving for about November 2028 from block numbers; a news report gives late 20281935.
Step 7: the Bitcoin version
Most “buy a machine and host it” offers are for Bitcoin, and the sums there are thinner.
Bitcoin miners quote “hashprice”: dollars earned per day by a standard slice of mining power (one petahash per second, PH/s; a petahash is a thousand terahash, and a terahash is a trillion attempts at the puzzle). On 10 October it was $39.46, which we cross-checked against the network’s difficulty2465. In February 2025 it was $5326.
On 13 October the same store listed an Antminer S21 XP (270 terahash per second, or 0.27 PH/s) at $3,952 and hosts it for $209.95 per 30 days1169. Our first read on 10 October recorded $4,006. Our sum: 0.27 x $39.46 = $10.65 a day earned; $7.00 a day hosting; $3.65 a day left. WhatToMine gave nearly the same on both dates25.
| Target | S21 XP machines needed (our estimate) | Cost at $3,952 each |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000 a month | about 9 | about $35,600 |
| $10,000 a month | about 90 | about $356,000 |
With everything frozen, payback would take about 1,080 days. It does not get that long. Bitcoin’s reward halves at block 1,050,000; at block 971,215 on 13 October that is about 545 days away, around April 20282425. Our estimate with price and difficulty frozen: about 545 x $3.65 = about $2,000 collected before the halving, half the machine’s price. After it, the machine earns about $5.40 a day against $7.00 of hosting. So a hosted Bitcoin machine at these retail rates does not repay unless the Bitcoin price rises or competition falls.
Step 8: why not at home
The average US home electricity price in July 2026 was 18.31 cents per kWh23. A Z15 Pro at that rate would still earn more than its power costs: about $12.22 a day against $41 to $50 earned (our sum)2324. But it is rated at 75 decibels of noise, and this store no longer delivers to homes: “They must be hosted by Musk Miners”212. The Bitcoin S21 XP would lose money at home: $16.02 of power against $10.65 earned (our sums)2324.
What people who tried it report
We found no dataset, study or company disclosure that says what share of small buyers recover the cost of their machines, or what the middle buyer earns. Every individual result below is the person’s own statement, without proof shown. Reddit refused our agents, so the forum evidence comes from the Zcash community forum only.
A seller’s running numbers. A person selling Z15 Pro machines on the Zcash forum wrote on 30 June 2026 that one mined about 0.12 ZEC a day, and asked $6,99927. On 4 August the same seller wrote: “It’s now 1.5 Zcash per month”, which is 0.05 a day27. The sales post gives about 0.059 ZEC a day; it offered a refurbished unit at $8,499 when read on 10 October and had been edited to $6,999, duties and shipping included, by 13 October27. The seller’s June and October figures are well above what the network’s difficulty allowed in those months, about 0.064 and 0.034 to 0.040 ZEC a day (our sums)924. Only the August correction matches.
The decline, from archived pages. Saved copies of the ASIC Miner Value page show a Z15 Pro earning 0.172 ZEC a day in July 2025, 0.0996 in December 2025, 0.0666 on 12 May 2026, 0.048 on 1 August 2026 and 0.0344 on 10 October 2026102. That is about 80% fewer coins per machine in 15 months, and about 28% fewer in the last ten weeks (our sums).
A recent buyer. A forum member wrote in September 2026 that he had bought several Z15 Pros at “four-thousand-something” dollars each and expected them to be “quite profitable” unless Zcash fell to $700. He had not started mining28.
The lean years. In December 2023 a long-standing forum member, reading a calculator, wrote that Zcash machines were “very unprofitable” except the Z15 Pro at “about $.15 per day”29.
An earlier cycle. In November 2020 a forum member said two first-batch Z15 machines bought for $6,500 had produced 108 ZEC in four and a half months, before electricity, and that he had sold none30.
Customer reviews. On Trustpilot, the store behind the tweet has 4.2 out of 5 from 20 reviews, two of them in the past year63. The company disputes its single one-star review as being about a different business, which it names as “MuskMining.cloud”. In that reply it says: “All mined assets are sent directly to the pool account controlled by the client. Our role is strictly to operate and host the miners, and we do not have the ability to access or withhold client funds”63. That is the company’s statement; we did not test it. Trustpilot reviews are not verified and the sample is too small to give a loss rate.
What went wrong for hosted customers elsewhere. The best-documented outcomes are disputes and failures. They concern only the people and companies named in them.
- The founder of VBit Technologies. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint on 17 December 2025 against Danh C. Vo, founder and chief executive of VBit Technologies4849. It alleges that “hosting agreements” raised “over $95.6 million from approximately 6,400 investors in an unregistered and fraudulent offering”, and that “In 2021, VBit sold Hosting Agreements for approximately 8,472 mining rigs but operated only 1,643 mining rigs”4849. The complaint also says “some investors received returns on their investments”48. These are allegations. Four relief defendants (people named because the SEC says they received proceeds) “have consented to final judgments, subject to court approval”49. The claims against Vo were pending as far as we checked, and we did not find his response.
- Geosyn Mining. In April 2024 the SEC alleged that a Texas hosting company “raised approximately $5.6 million from more than 60 investors” and “never purchased mining machines (or brought mining machines online) for some of the previous investors”50. Alleged; we did not find the outcome.
- Compass Mining. Customers sued in January 2023 over machines hosted in Siberia that were not returned after US sanctions on the Russian host, BitRiver5556. They claimed equipment and services worth more than $1.75 million55. As reported that month, the judge dismissed the complaint without prejudice, meaning it could be filed again, citing “several deficiencies that prevent the Court from moving forward”, and gave the customers until 3 February 2023 to refile. Compass called the filing “spurious” and said it “strongly believes that the filing has no merit”55. We did not find what happened after January 2023.
What the rules allow now
Mining on your own machines is not treated as a securities offering by SEC staff; hosted machines are not addressed. “Securities” are investments that by law must be registered and sold with disclosures. SEC staff said on 20 March 2025 that mining on your own machines, alone or in a pool, does “not involve the offer and sale of securities”51. The statement does not mention hosting. It also says it is “not dispositive”, meaning it is not a ruling on any particular deal51.
The packaged version is where regulators have acted. In the complaint against VBit’s founder the SEC says the “Hosting Agreements are investment contracts and therefore securities”, in an offer described as “a turnkey solution for average people to start making a passive income stream”48. An “investment contract” is a deal in which people put in money and rely on someone else’s work for the profit. A separate SEC case against Green United concerns machines sold to mine a token of the company’s own, which the SEC alleges could not be mined. A Utah federal judge declined to dismiss that case in September 2024, according to news coverage; the company denied the allegations at that date, and we did not find the later course of the case52. The Texas State Securities Board issued an emergency order in February 2026 over passive “Mining Packages” sold through recruitment. Its deputy commissioner told investors to “be cautious of investment opportunities they may come across on social media channels. Especially ones promising passive returns tied to cryptocurrency mining, particularly when promotions rely heavily on recruitment incentives instead of legitimate investment performance”54. All of these are allegations about the respondents in those cases, and they concern only those respondents. None concerns the store behind the tweet, and we found no court or regulator action against it.
The store’s own terms, read on 10 October 2026 and again on 13 October:
- All sales are final and non-refundable14. One of our agents read the same on the page of Bitmain, the manufacturer: “All sales are final; No refund requests will be entertained”; the page refused a second read47.
- Hosting is a 12-month contract, only for machines bought from the store: “No Exceptions”11. The buyer owns the machine and can ship it out at the end, at $50 per unit within the US11.
- Non-Bitcoin machines “come with 6 months of factory warranty”, and “All warranties begin to expire the day the unit leaves the factory”13. This is the store’s statement; we could not read Bitmain’s own warranty period for Zcash models47.
- The store’s protection plan covers fan, control board and power supply replacements and hashboard repairs (the hashboard is the part that does the mining). It is free for the first 12 months on new hosted machines, then $5 per miner per month. It does not cover replacing a complete hashboard or a whole machine, or fire, theft and flood17. The FAQ says a hosted miner that arrives faulty is fixed “at no cost to the client”13.
- The Terms of Use page held only a heading and one line when read16. The hosting contract is not published, so we could not read what it says about uptime (the share of hours a machine is running), switch-offs, leaving early or liability.
Rule changes to Zcash itself. A group called Shielded Labs proposes an upgrade named Crosslink that would add “staking” (earning rewards by locking up coins) beside mining. Its FAQ says: “block rewards would be split 40% to miners, 40% to stakers, and 20% to the Dev Fund”, a share of new coins set aside to pay for development20. Miners appear to receive 80% today, since 1.25 ZEC of a 1.5625 ZEC block reward goes to them418. The proposal is not adopted. Its roadmap gives no activation date, but its current phase, “Q2 2026 - Q2 2027”, includes “deploying Crosslink on a testnet” and, “if there is consensus, integrating it into the Zcash protocol”, with the status “In Progress”20. If it were adopted as proposed, a machine’s coin income would halve from that date (our reading of the change from 80% to 40%). That window overlaps a 12-month hosting contract signed today.
Rules where the machines sit. The store’s hosting page says it owns and operates sites in West Texas and Louisiana and was “adding partner facilities in Washington, Arkansas and Iowa”; its FAQ lists Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington state11. Arkansas has required a state permit for mining businesses since 2024, and a 2025 Texas law lets very large new power users be switched off during grid emergencies5859. We did not check whether either applies to the store’s sites.
A rule about the coin. From 10 July 2027, European Union banks and crypto service providers may not keep anonymous accounts or accounts that allow transactions to be made anonymous or harder to trace, “including through anonymity-enhancing coins”. The law defines those as crypto-assets with features that make transfers anonymous “either systematically or optionally”60. Zcash’s private transfers are optional. Whether Zcash falls under the rule is our reading; we checked no regulator statement.
Import duties. US duties on mining machines were reported in August 2025 at 21.6% to 57.6% by country of origin61. The store says duties are included in its price13.
Who makes money from it
In our one-tweet collection, the thing on offer is not a course or a paid group. It is the machine and the hosting contract11112. We found no paid course specific to hosted mining in one search; that is one search, not proof there is none.
The buyer is paid last, in a coin whose price moves. These parties are paid first, in dollars or as a cut:
- The machine seller. About $94,750 up front for the package in the tweet (our sum)1268.
- The host. About $17,700 to $19,100 a year for those ten machines, whatever the coin price does (our estimate)11. The store sells the machine and signs the hosting contract, and machines bought there must be hosted there1112. Its page says it owns sites in West Texas and Louisiana and uses partner facilities elsewhere, so the building may be run by another company11.
- Other hosts work the same way. Simple Mining advertises hosting “from $0.065/kWh”, with 8 cents for small customers, and hosts only machines bought from it38. Blockware quotes a starting rate of $0.078 per kWh41. Sazmining charges power at cost and says “our only profit is the 15% management fee on the Bitcoin your rig mines”40. Compass Mining’s terms say: “All sales are final. No refunds will be issued under any circumstances once the purchase has been completed”39.
- The pool. 2% to 4% of what is mined18.
- Referrers. OneMiners pays 1% to 2% of a referred order and says “$732,113 has been paid through the program this year” to 7,247 affiliates42. That averages about $101 each (our sum; the company’s figures are its own). Kryptex, a pool, invites people to “earn 20% of their pool income” from each miner they refer; that is the pool’s wording44. These programmes mean an account posting mining income figures may be paid per order; we did not check any account for this. The tweet above is from the X account that the store’s own site links to11.
- The comparison site and the manufacturer. ASIC Miner Value says vendors pay it a subscription and 1% to 3% of each confirmed sale, and that a paid plan “never changes the price or the data displayed”45. Bitmain offers a coupon of $10,000 to $20,000 per megawatt for referring a large hosting client46.
About the store itself: the Better Business Bureau lists Musk Mining LLC of Grand Forks, North Dakota, as accredited with an A+ rating. It records two complaints in three years, one of them in the past 12 months; the details are not published62. Nothing we read shows that it fails to deliver.
The largest earners are industrial. Fortitude, whose parent is Digital Currency Group34, said it mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026, about 28% of all Zcash mined32. In July 2026 it ordered 9,000 Z15 Pro machines at $3,499 each, to ship in October and November32. Those machines add about 7.56 billion solutions per second, roughly a quarter on top of today’s network (our sum)3249. On 6 October 2026 it signed a letter of intent, a statement of plans that binds neither side to buy, for “up to $100 million” of a next Zcash machine from Bitmain; the report gives no shipping date34. A second listed company (one whose shares trade on a stock exchange), Cypherpunk Technologies, bought a running Z15 Pro fleet for $33.33 million in stock in August 2026 and called it “approximately 18% of the total Zcash network”33. These are company statements in press releases.
The large buyer’s price edge was modest. Fortitude said its $3,499 was “approximately 13% to 27% below what we believe to be the prevailing market pricing” for the same delivery months, which implies a market price of about $4,000 to $4,800 (our sum)32. So most of the gap between $3,499 in July and $9,450 on 13 October is ten weeks of timing, not scale1532. On this evidence the large buyer’s real edges are its own power sites and the date it ordered.
The upside
The daily figure is real. On 10 October 2026 ASIC Miner Value ranked the Z15 Pro as the most profitable machine on its list66.
Earlier buyers: what public data shows, and its limits. We found no verified account from any buyer, so we rebuilt what a machine bought on earlier dates would have earned. The prices are the lowest listings for a new, in-stock Z15 Pro in archived copies of the price tracker10. They are advertised prices from vendors shipping from Hong Kong, before shipping and US import duty. They are not confirmed sales. Daily income is the tracker’s coin figure times the market price that day, because the tracker’s own dollar figures were up to about 30% away from exchange prices on two of these dates6710. The last column uses daily difficulty and price, 8-cent hosting, a 2% pool fee and 95% uptime69. Every figure except the listings is our estimate.
| Date of the archived page | Lowest advertised price10 | Coins a day shown10 | Income a day at market price | Payback on that day’s figures | Left after hosting by 10 October 2026: running at once / after a 60-day wait |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 July 2025 | $2,279 to $2,799 | 0.172 ZEC | about $7 | about 4 years | see below |
| 27 December 2025 | $1,598 | 0.0996 ZEC | about $45 | about 6 weeks | about $7,600 / $6,100 |
| 11 March 2026 | $3,590 (the “Best price” box showed $4,999) | 0.0881 ZEC | about $19 | about 9 months | about $6,000 / $4,700 |
| 12 May 2026 | $965 | 0.0666 ZEC | about $37 | about 1 month | about $4,600 / $3,000 |
| 29 May 2026 | $738 to $750, five vendors | 0.0639 ZEC | about $35 | under 1 month | about $4,000 / $2,600 |
| 1 August 2026 | $3,407 to $3,436 | 0.048 ZEC | about $22 | about 7 months | about $2,500 / $500 |
| 10 October 2026 | $13,400 ($9,254 for January)2 | 0.0344 ZEC2 | about $41 | 7 to 9 months at $9,254 | not yet known |
Three cautions before reading a result from this table:
- The tracker is not a reliable price series. The May listings sit far below other evidence from the same weeks. The store’s own page showed the Z15 Pro at $8,600, out of stock, on 9 June 202670. The forum seller asked $6,999 on 30 June27. The forum buyer paid “four-thousand-something”28. Fortitude’s July order implies a market price of $4,000 to $4,80032. Nothing shows anyone could buy and receive a machine at $738.
- US buyers paid more. Duties of 21.6% to 57.6% and shipping come on top of a Hong Kong price61. The hosts on this page host only machines bought from them1138.
- Hosting may not have been on offer. Archived copies of the store’s hosting page from 12 January and 28 April 2026 list no Zcash machine among its hostable machines70.
With those limits, our estimate is this. A machine bought at the December 2025 listing has repaid its price several times over, even after a 60-day wait and the top duty rate ($1,598 x 1.576 = about $2,500, against about $6,100). A machine bought in March 2026 has repaid the lowest listing of $3,590. It passed $4,999 only on 21 September 2026, during the price spike, and after a 60-day wait it stands at about $4,700. A machine bought at $6,999 at the end of June would have collected about $3,200 by 10 October, under half its price. One bought on 1 August at about $3,425 is about three quarters of the way if it ran at once.
From 1 August to 10 October the lowest listing rose about 2.7 times to the January-delivery price ($9,254) and about 3.9 times in stock ($13,400). Daily income at market prices rose about 1.9 to 2.2 times (about $22 to between $41.45 and $48.98)10246.
The earliest buyer. A machine bought in July 2025 and run at 95% uptime from August 2025 to September 2026 would have mined about 37 ZEC (our estimate from difficulty)910. Sold month by month, that is about $13,000 against about $2,200 of electricity at 8 cents per kWh; kept until 10 October 2026, it is worth about $46,000 (our estimate)76. It is hindsight. On the day of that snapshot the calculator showed 0.172 ZEC a day. At the market price of about $41 that was about $7 a day, roughly $1.50 above 8-cent hosting710. (The tracker’s own dollar figure, $5.12, used a lower price than exchanges showed.) Nothing on that day pointed to what followed.
Where the return came from. One test for mining is whether the machine produced more coins than its price would have bought. Zcash traded near $39 in early August 2025, so $2,279 to $2,799 was then about 58 to 72 ZEC, more than the 37 the machine mined710. In March 2026 $3,590 was about 16 ZEC at $221; the machine has mined about 13 since69. In December 2025 the cheapest machine did better than its price in coins: $1,598 was about 3.6 ZEC at $448, against about 19 mined6910. These are our estimates. In two of the three cases the dollar gain came mostly from the coin’s price, not from the machine. This describes where the return came from; it is not advice on any asset.
Individuals and companies. The two forum members above gave their own figures without proof3028. We found no income report from an individual hosted miner that was verified by pool or payment records, and no data on how buyers’ results are spread, so we cannot say what the top tenth earn. The largest company figure is Fortitude’s 72,696 ZEC in six months, on “over 60 MW of contracted power capacity”; it does not disclose its power cost32.
The Bitcoin lottery. On 2 April 2026 a solo miner with about one machine’s worth of power (230 terahash) found a Bitcoin block alone and received 3.139 bitcoin, about $210,000, according to a news report. The pool operator put the odds at about 1 in 28,000 per day64. It is a verifiable win, and a prize draw more than an income.
A realistic first year, buying today. Our model for one Z15 Pro bought now at $9,450. It uses the same base as Step 6: 0.037 ZEC a day, a 2% pool fee, 8-cent hosting, and 95% uptime241118. Hosting comes to about $1,850 for a full year. Each cell is what is left after hosting and the pool fee in the 12 months after payment. The first column is a machine running from day one, which the store did not have in stock on 13 October; the next two are a machine that starts after three months (the January batch) and after five (the March batch)15. Difficulty growing 10% a month means a network about 3.1 times today’s after a year; 15% a month means about 5.3 times. It grew about 15% a month from May to October 2026 and was flat while the price was low9.
| Scenario (our estimate) | Coins mined from day one | Running from day one | Starts in January | Starts in March |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price and competition both frozen at today’s level | about 12.6 ZEC | about $13,700 | about $10,200 | about $8,000 |
| Price back at the September high of $1,653; difficulty grows 15% a month | about 6.5 ZEC | about $8,900 | about $4,900 | about $3,000 |
| Price holds at $1,233; difficulty grows 10% a month | about 7.9 ZEC | about $7,800 | about $4,800 | about $3,200 |
| Price returns to $500 (where it was in mid-August 2026); difficulty grows 10% a month | about 7.9 ZEC | about $2,100 | about $1,100 | about $700 |
| Price returns to $300 (where it was about 20 April 2026); difficulty flat, as it was at that price | about 12.6 ZEC | about $1,900 | about $1,400 | about $1,100 |
| Stress case: price $300 and difficulty still growing 15% a month | about 6.5 ZEC | about $100 | a loss of about $250 | a loss of about $330 |
Only the frozen case, running from day one, repays a $9,450 machine within the year. For a March-batch machine the first 12 months after payment bring between a small loss and about $8,000 across these rows, and about $3,200 if the price holds and difficulty grows 10% a month. The range is set by the coin price in both directions. None of the rows includes Crosslink, which would halve coin income from its start date if adopted as proposed20. At the end of the year the buyer also holds a used machine of uncertain value.
The same test in coins: $9,450 is about 7.7 ZEC at $1,233. In the frozen case from day one the machine mines about 12.6 ZEC and hosting costs the equivalent of about 1.5, leaving about 11. With difficulty growing 10% a month it leaves about 6.4, less than 7.7, before counting what the used machine sells for (our estimates).
For a hosted Bitcoin machine at retail rates, our sum above is about $1,330 a year on a $3,952 machine until the 2028 halving, and less than the hosting bill after it241169.
What it takes to compete
Cheap power. A CoinShares report on listed Bitcoin miners for the second quarter of 2026 puts their average cash cost at about $75,500 per bitcoin against a quarter-end price near $58,400, and cites one company’s site with power near 2.8 cents per kWh37. We read that report through a summarising tool, so treat the figures with care. A retail hosted customer pays 6.5 to 8 cents384111.
Timing, more than scale. The strong results above belong to machines bought while they were cheap. On the price tracker the lowest listings were $1,598 in December 2025, $3,590 in March 2026 and about $3,425 on 1 August10. By 10 October listings ran from $9,254 for January 2027 delivery to $13,400 in stock2. A buyer today pays a price that already reflects the rise. A machine that arrives in five months misses five months of the conditions the price was based on.
Money that can be lost. One machine is enough to start: the store’s minimum is one unit11. But there are no refunds14. The machine mines one kind of puzzle, the warranty the store describes is six months from the factory date, and a newer model is on the way131534. The same store lists a used Bitcoin S19j Pro at $400 and a used S19 XP at $700, both earlier generations; we did not check what they cost new11.
A host you can check. In the SEC’s allegations against VBit’s founder, investors received no serial numbers for their machines48. That case concerns only the people named in it. A hosted buyer depends on the host for uptime and for accurate reporting. The store behind the tweet says, in a reply on Trustpilot, that mined coins go straight to a pool account the customer controls63. We did not find that statement on its own site.
A view on the coin. The sums above are a bet on the Zcash price and on how fast other machines arrive. The machine adds hardware, hosting and rule-change risks to the price risk of the coin. That describes the risks; it is not advice on any asset.
How to tell early which side you are on:
- Do the sum at half the current coin price and with 10% more competition each month. If the machine does not repay in that case, the plan depends on the good case.
- Ask for the hosting contract before paying. Look for the all-in rate in writing, an uptime record, what happens during switch-offs, whether you can stop early, and the rate after month 12.
- Check whether you can point the machine at your own pool account and see its output yourself.
- Check the delivery date and which batch the price is for, and count payback from the day the machine starts.
- Compare the machine’s price with its price three months ago, and its daily income with its income three months ago. If the price rose faster, you are late.
What we did not verify
- Outcomes for real buyers. We found no data on what share of small or hosted miners recover their costs, and no verified income report from an individual. Our dated entry-point sums rest on advertised prices, not sales.
- The tweet’s link and any image. We read the tweet’s text from our collection only. The store’s site links to the X account; the account’s own profile was not opened.
- The store’s prices on 10 October. Our first read recorded $9,750 for the Z15K and $4,006 for the S21 XP. On 13 October the pages showed $9,500 and $3,952, and no archive copy exists to say whether the prices moved or the first read was wrong. Stock on 10 October is also unknown.
- The store’s terms for Zcash machines. Its hosting FAQ names only Bitcoin and Litecoin/Dogecoin models, and the hosting contract is not public. We did not see a separate price for the January batch, whether shipping is charged on hosted machines, or whether a machine can be switched off early without charge.
- The machines’ real speed and power. The store and the tracker disagree on both (525 or 565 thousand for the Z15K; 2,560 or 2,780 watts for the Z15 Pro). Calculators use rated figures; real output and downtime of hosted machines were not measured.
- Today’s income figure. ASIC Miner Value’s income table showed $0.00 on both dates and its home page disagreed with its machine page. The $7,250 listing for March 2027 delivery could not be re-checked.
- Bitmain’s own figures. Its shop returned an empty page. The official price, stock and warranty period for the Zcash models are unconfirmed. Its warranty page47 was read by one agent and refused a second read.
- Zcash’s rules. The 1.25 ZEC miner share comes from a calculator and a pool; the rule document we read, ZIP 1015, covers a period that has ended. The halving date is our estimate. Whether Crosslink will be adopted is open; a mining pool’s article says Zcash will later end mining entirely, which we could not confirm21.
- Court cases. We did not look up the court dockets, so the current status of the SEC cases against VBit’s founder, Geosyn and Green United, and of the Compass customers’ lawsuit, is unknown to us. The Green United and Compass details come from news coverage. The Texas order itself was not opened, only the press release.
- Company figures. Fortitude’s and Cypherpunk’s numbers are from press releases; Business Wire refused us and we read a copy on Finviz.
- Old prices. Zcash prices before August 2025 were not fetched. The archived tracker pages between 9 September and 10 October 2026 do not exist. Some archived vendor prices were outliers we could not explain and were left out, among them a used unit at $1,415 and a listing at $11,595 in July 2025.
- Costs left out of our sums: repairs, shipping, card fees, sales tax, income tax, and what a used Zcash machine resells for. The IRS notice is from 2014; we did not confirm that later guidance leaves it unchanged. The tariff figures are from August 2025.
- Not covered. Litecoin/Dogecoin machines; state rules in Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Washington; Reddit, which refused our agents; and a second search wording for paid courses, which the method asks for.
Sources
- Does It Pay collection of 1 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06. The tweet: https://x.com/MuskMiners/status/2107512084686573963. Read from the collection file on 2026-10-10; the tweet was not re-opened on X.
- ASIC Miner Value, Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro. https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-z15-pro. Live data dated 2026-10-10 and 2026-10-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- ASIC Miner Value, Bitmain Antminer Z15K 565k. https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-z15-k-565. Live data dated 2026-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- WhatToMine, Zcash calculator data. https://whattomine.com/coins/166.json. 2026-10-10 and 2026-10-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13 (the web page returned 403; the data address worked).
- minerstat, Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro. https://minerstat.com/hardware/bitmain-antminer-z15-pro. Live page, benchmark updated 2026-08-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- CoinGecko, Zcash daily prices for 365 days and spot price. https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/coins/zcash/market_chart?vs_currency=usd&days=365&interval=daily. A rolling window: 2025-10-11 to 2026-10-10 when read at source on 2026-10-10, and 2025-10-14 to 2026-10-13 when read again on 2026-10-13.
- Kraken, ZEC/USD weekly prices. https://api.kraken.com/0/public/OHLC?pair=ZECUSD&interval=10080. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- BitInfoCharts, Zcash hashrate chart. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/zcash-hashrate.html. Chart data to 2026-07-18. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Blockchair, Zcash average difficulty by month and by day, and current network statistics. https://api.blockchair.com/zcash/blocks?a=month,avg(difficulty),count()&q=time(2017-10-01..2026-10-10), https://api.blockchair.com/zcash/blocks?a=date,avg(difficulty)&q=time(2025-07-01..2026-10-10) and https://api.blockchair.com/zcash/stats. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the daily series on 2026-10-13.
- Internet Archive copies of the ASIC Miner Value Z15 Pro page. http://web.archive.org/web/20250716025549/https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-z15-pro, and the same page at /web/20251227060730/, /web/20260311042223/, /web/20260512124203/, /web/20260529212923/, /web/20260801180759/ and /web/20260909205235/. Snapshots dated 2025-07-16 to 2026-09-09. Read at source on 2026-10-10; all but the last read again on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, hosting page. https://muskminers.com/hosting/. Undated, footer 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, store listing. https://www.muskminers.com/store/?f_1=1. Undated, footer 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, FAQ. https://muskminers.com/resources/faq/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Musk Miners, returns policy. https://muskminers.com/legal/returns/. Undated, footer 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Musk Miners, Antminer Z15 Pro product page. https://muskminers.com/item/91/antminer-z15-pro-860k-zcash-miner-july-batch/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, Terms of Use. https://muskminers.com/legal/terms/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Musk Miners, protection plan. https://muskminers.com/protection/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- ViaBTC, “How to mine Zcash (ZEC) in 2026”. https://www.viabtc.com/en/blog/Insights-how-to-mine-zcash-zec-in-2026-hashrate-difficulty-profitability-guide-756?category=0. 2026-09-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Zcash Improvement Proposals 208 and 1015. https://zips.z.cash/zip-0208 and https://zips.z.cash/zip-1015. ZIP 1015 created 2024-08-26. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Used for the 75-second block spacing and the halving rule only: ZIP 1015’s funding streams ended at block 3,146,400, before the current block. The next halving date is our estimate from block heights.
- Shielded Labs, Crosslink page, FAQ and roadmap. https://shieldedlabs.net/crosslink/, https://shieldedlabs.net/crosslink-faq/ and https://shieldedlabs.net/roadmap/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai; the roadmap again on 2026-10-13.
- Kryptex Pool, Zcash article. https://pool.kryptex.com/en/articles/zcash-en. April 2026. Secondary.
- US Internal Revenue Service, Notice 2014-21. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf. 2014. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- US Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a. Data for July 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Hashrate Index, Bitcoin hashprice index. https://data.hashrateindex.com/network-data/bitcoin-hashprice-index. 2026-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- WhatToMine, Bitcoin calculator data. https://whattomine.com/coins/1.json?hr=270&p=3645&fee=0&cost=0.08. 2026-10-10 and 2026-10-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Miner Weekly, on hashprice and hosted machines. https://www.minerweekly.com/p/bitcoin-miner-loss-hashprice. 2025-02-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Zcash Community Forum, a seller’s posts on the Z15 Pro. https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/bitmain-antminer-z15-pro-840k-for-sale-with-payment-protection/56891 (created 2026-08-03, first post last edited 2026-10-13) and https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/z15-pro-840-ksol-s-current-zec-mining-economics-june-2026/56460 (2026-06-30). Read at source on 2026-10-10; the first again on 2026-10-13.
- Zcash Community Forum, “Who is mining Zcash in 2026 with Antminer Z15 Pro”. https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/who-is-mining-zcash-in-2026-with-antminer-z15-pro/54884. Post of 2026-09-22. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Zcash Community Forum, “Bring back GPU miners”. https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/bring-back-gpu-miners/46407. 2023-12-30. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Zcash Community Forum, “How risky is it to invest on a Z15 ASIC”. https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/how-risky-is-it-to-invest-on-a-z15-asic/37694. Post of 2020-11-01. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Zcash Community Forum, “The Zcash Daily” news digest. https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/the-zcash-daily/57219. 2026-10-06. Secondary. No longer cited in the text.
- Finviz copy of a Fortitude press release on its purchase of 9,000 Antminer Z15 Pro units. https://finviz.com/news/374881/fortitude-purchases-9000-bitmain-antminer-z15-pro-units-deepening-commitment-to-the-zcash-ecosystem. 2026-07-30. Secondary (the Business Wire original returned 403 directly and an empty page through r.jina.ai).
- AAP copy of a Cypherpunk Technologies press release. https://www.aap.com.au/aapreleases/cision20260818ae28327/. 2026-08-18. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- The Block, on Fortitude’s letter of intent for new Zcash miners. https://theblock.co/news/business/2026-10-06-fortitude-expands-zcash-mining-push-with-up-to-100-million-equipment-commitment-417790. 2026-10-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13 through r.jina.ai.
- Bitcoin.com News, “Zcash hashrate goes vertical”. https://news.bitcoin.com/zcash-hashrate-goes-vertical-as-870-zec-price-wakes-asic-giants/. 2026-08-25. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- DiarioBitcoin, summary of a Grayscale analysis of Zcash mining revenue. https://www.diariobitcoin.com/mineria/minar-zcash-es-mas-rentable-que-bitcoin-4-veces-mas-ingresos-por-megavatio/. 2026-09-11. Secondary. No longer cited in the text.
- CoinShares, Bitcoin Mining Report Q2 2026. https://coinshares.com/corp/insights/research-data/bitcoin-mining-report-q2-2026/. 2026-09-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a summarising fetch.
- Simple Mining, hosting page. https://www.simplemining.io/hosting. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Compass Mining, terms of service. https://compassmining.io/terms-of-service. Last updated 2025-08-20. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13, both through r.jina.ai.
- Sazmining, home page. https://www.sazmining.com/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- Blockware Solutions, mining as a service. https://www.blockwaresolutions.com/products/mining-as-a-service-maas/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- OneMiners, referral programme. https://oneminers.com/pages/referral-program. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- Power Mining, affiliate programme. https://powermining.io/pages/affiliate. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10. No longer cited in the text: the programme is for small home Bitcoin miners, not hosted machines.
- Kryptex, referral programme. https://www.kryptex.com/referral-program. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- ASIC Miner Value, “How ordering works”. https://www.asicminervalue.com/how-ordering-works. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- Bitmain, turnkey hosting. https://www.bitmain.com/miningFarm/turnkeyHosting. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- Bitmain support, product warranty. https://support.bitmain.com/hc/en-us/articles/223400048-Product-Warranty. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai by one agent (direct fetch returned an empty page); later reads the same day were refused.
- US Securities and Exchange Commission, complaint in SEC v. Vo (VBit Technologies), No. 1:25-cv-01513, D. Del. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2025/comp26448.pdf. 2025-12-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- US Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 26448. https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-26448. 2025-12-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- US Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 25983 (Geosyn Mining). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-25983. 2024-04-24. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- US Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Corporation Finance, statement on certain proof-of-work mining activities. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/statement-certain-proof-work-mining-activities-032025. 2025-03-20. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Decrypt, on the ruling in SEC v. Green United. https://decrypt.co/251285/crypto-mining-rig-sales-securities-sec-green-united. 2024-09-29. Secondary (journalism about a court case), read on 2026-10-13 through r.jina.ai.
- Not used. This number is kept so that later numbers do not change.
- Texas State Securities Board, press release on order ENF-26-CDO-1893. https://ssb.texas.gov/news-publications/texas-grounds-crypto-mining-investment-rocket-ship. 2026-02-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Decrypt, “Compass sued over allegedly failing to return customer bitcoin miners”. https://decrypt.co/119579/compass-sued-over-allegedly-failing-return-customer-bitcoin-miners. 2023-01-19. Secondary (journalism about a court filing), read on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13 through r.jina.ai.
- US Department of the Treasury, press release on sanctions including BitRiver. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0731. April 2022. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai.
- DataCenterDynamics, on the NFN8 bankruptcy. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/cryptominer-nfn8-files-for-bankruptcy-following-data-center-fire-and-bitcoin-price-crash/. 2026-02-18. Secondary (trade press quoting court papers), read on 2026-10-10 through r.jina.ai by one agent (direct fetch returned 403); later reads the same day were refused. No longer cited in the text.
- Arkansas General Assembly, Acts 173 and 174 of 2024. https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Home/FTPDocument?path=%2FACTS%2F2024F%2FPublic%2FACT174.pdf. 2024-05-03. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- Texas Legislature, Senate Bill 6 (89th Legislature). https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/SB00006F.htm. 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- European Union, Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Article 79. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401624. 2024-05-31. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
- The Block, on US tariffs on mining machines. https://www.theblock.co/post/365793/trump-tariffs-bitcoin-miners. 2025-08-06. Secondary.
- Better Business Bureau, Musk Mining LLC profile and complaints. https://www.bbb.org/us/nd/grand-forks/profile/computer-hardware/musk-mining-llc-0704-1000060738 and the same address with /complaints. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13, both through r.jina.ai.
- Trustpilot, reviews of muskminers.com. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/muskminers.com. Reviews dated October 2021 to April 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13, both through r.jina.ai (direct fetch returned 403).
- ForkLog, “Solo miner secures Bitcoin block, earns $210,000”. https://forklog.com/en/news/solo-miner-secures-bitcoin-block-earns-210000. 2026-04-03. Secondary.
- mempool.space, Bitcoin difficulty. https://mempool.space/api/v1/mining/hashrate/3d. 2026-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Used to cross-check the hashprice in source 24.
- ASIC Miner Value, home page ranking. https://www.asicminervalue.com/. 2026-10-10 and 2026-10-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, shipping page. https://muskminers.com/legal/shipping/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 and again on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, Antminer Z15K product page. https://muskminers.com/item/94/antminer-z15-zcash-miner/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-13.
- Musk Miners, Antminer S21 XP 270TH product page. https://muskminers.com/item/69/antminer-s21-xp-270th/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-13.
- Internet Archive copies of Musk Miners pages: the Z15 Pro product page at http://web.archive.org/web/20260609233737/https://muskminers.com/item/91/antminer-z15-pro-860k-zcash-miner-july-batch/ and the hosting page at http://web.archive.org/web/20260112181554/https://muskminers.com/hosting/ and http://web.archive.org/web/20260428225541/https://muskminers.com/hosting/. Snapshots dated 2026-01-12 to 2026-06-09. Read at source on 2026-10-13.
Corrections
If you are quoted or named on this page and think something is wrong, want your reply shown beside it, or want to be removed, write to [email protected]. We aim to reply within 14 days, and always within one month. Factual errors are corrected with a dated note here. A sentence that is seriously disputed comes down while we check it.
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