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Taiwan IC designers capable of providing crypto mining ASIC solutions are feeling increasing pressure from customers postponing shipments and new product development amid Bitcoin plunging to a new low of under US$5,000 recently, and the waning mining fever is expected to undermine revenue performances of the chipmakers in the first half of 2019, according to industry sources.

The sources said that since the beginning of 2018, many new mining customers have moved to contract Taiwan chipmakers, including MediaTek, Global Unichip, Alchip, Faraday Technology and RDC Semiconductor, to design exclusive ASICS fabricated on advanced 7nm process to effectively save power consumption and better mining performance.

But the ever-declining prices of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have not only built up record-high inventory levels of mining graphic cards at suppliers, but also sent mining ASIC clients asking Taiwan IC designers to delay shipments.

Among the designers, RDC Semiconductor has suspended development of ASIC solutions for mining customers; MediaTelk is not expected to enforce its 7nm mining ASIC plan until the first half of 2019; and other peer chipmakers Global Unichip, Alchip and Faraday do not have clear delivery schedules for such customers, the sources said. Even TSMC has directly scaled down mining ASIC foundry orders to near zero, according to industry sources.

The sources stressed that even though Bitcoin price has fallen under the US$5,000, mining customers can still manage to sustain profitable operations but it will take much longer time for them to recoup the development costs for chips and mining machines. But chipmakers are expected to keep developing new ASIC solutions for other blockchain-based applications than digital tokens.

Shipment momentum for mining ASICs is not expected to resume until after existing inventories are depleted in the second half of 2019, the sources indicated.