The ASIC-mainer Antminer E3 from Chinese manufacturer Bitmain is no longer capable of producing ETC. In April, ETH mining may also stop on these devices.
Antminer E3 was introduced in April 2018, becoming the first and only mass ASIC-miner working on the Ethash algorithm. Despite the developers' claims that the Ethereum Classic hash rate with Antminer E3 is 180 Mx/s, some users reported the hash rate dropping to 30 Mx/s and a sudden termination of ETC mining. According to Bitmain employees, Antminer E3 could only produce ETC until January 2020, but users started complaining about problems with the device's mining only in mid-February.
Perhaps the problem is that the miners have to download a voluminous DAG file before the mining starts. The size of this file increases with each new era of the Ethlash algorithm through 30,000 blocks. As a result, due to memory limitations, Antminer E3 can no longer mine ETC. Today Ethereum Classic is 10 epochs ahead of Ethereum. That means that in about 45 days Antminer E3 will be unable to max out ETH as well. Miners will have to switch to other coins on Ethash, but their profitability after the influx of new power will drop significantly.
Recall that in January Bitmain refused the services of the Canadian company DMG Blockchain, which operates a mining center in Texas, because the company was unable to "determine the cost and effectiveness of management.
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