ZeusMiner, an IC design firm with operation centers in California and Hong Kong, have announced pre-orders for the first pure Scrypt ASIC miners in the world. The mining rigs are available for pre-order now and will ship internationally before May 31, 2014. The icing on the cake? The rigs have awesome-sounding names: Blizzard, Lightning, Thunder, and Cyclone. Furthermore, the company offers a 5% discount to customers paying with bitcoin and litecoin.
ZeusMiner brings over 15 years of SOC and ASIC chip design and development experience to the table. During the past 3 years they have been providing custom mining rig development, professional manufacturing, and mining farm deployment to their clients.
So what does ZeusMiner offer in terms of miners?
For beginners, there’s ZeusMiner’s Blizzard, a pocket-sized miner that produces 1.2Mh/s and goes for $199. For the more determined miner, Thunder provides 36-40Mh/s for the price of $5,500.
ZeusMiner addressed the perceived giant leap between power and price between Blizzard and Thunder by creating the limited edition Cyclone, which produces 18-20Mh/s and sells for $2,999. Cyclone is upgradable and can become a Thunder with the addition of a second blade. Zeus has yet to announce the price of individual plans they will sell in the future.
The final model, Lightning, produces 72Mh/s @ 960W and has a four blade design intended to keep the machine producing for years and keep it cool that entire time. The first 100 Lightning customers will receive a unique name-plate to commemorate their leap into the new era of mining.
ZeusMiner is showing how they have their loyal customers’ backs. A ‘Like’ of their Facebook page or sharing their products’ links translates to a 1% discount. To show their appreciation to their Batch 1 customers, ZeusMiner will be giving them 120% of free hashing power that they have already purchased. Additional early bird buyers will be rewarded with free hashing power, including a 100% boost to those who buy before April 30.
As the anticipation grows for the Zeus products, warnings are still given about deals that are too good to be true. A short summary of the Zeus products on the Daily Doge included the following precaution:
“Honestly, I am pretty skeptical of any ASIC manufacturer but ZeusMiner is the closest I have been able to find to a legitimate-esque company. Their CEO is pretty active on LitecoinTalk and seems to be pretty consistent with his updates. My only concern is none of these companies have actual photos of their finished products. They tend to just be vague pictures of heat sinks and PCB boards. I would feel more comfortable pre-ordering if they at least had a prototype.”
If these warnings don’t take a turn for the worse and ZeusMiners hit the market running, the Litecoin ecosystem could enter a new era with these quality products. But like any sensible person will tell you: buyer beware.