igneum/docs/analysis/class-v6/coexistence-model.md

The coexistence model (second cut): can a specialised supplier earn a normal return while GPUs stay close enough to compete?

8 October 2026, 16:1x to 17:0x UK, branch class-v6-floor-sram, floor lane 3, Igneum 2.0 D4 (the research lane's word of 17:0x UK; the founder's accepted external review replaces the capex wall with this model; the profitability surface of docs/analysis/class-v6/floor/sram-and-floor.md section 4.4 is its base). Second cut; the section list is the D4 checklist so the pin can be closed line by line. Every row is modelled: the arithmetic is scratchpad/coexist.py (the first cut, run on build-3 at 16:2x) and scratchpad/coexist2.py (this cut, run on build-4 at 16:52; build-3 was down from 16:40); the card rows are lane 4's class v5 table (docs/analysis/class-v6/floor/denominator.md, section 10.4 of the design document: measured at the floor where it says so, modelled knees elsewhere), the chip rows the chip model's (chip-model-v3 5.5 and 5.12, lane B, the k lane's 3.2 pJ per forced op), the proving rows the bench table's shard times with the fleet lane's measured day on Devnet 3 (the 12 GB tier a measured zero for internal proving), the prices street approximations. The operator simulation beside it is docs/analysis/class-v6/operator-simulation.md. Nothing here is served; nothing is a measurement of a chip. The founder is not named.

The statement under test. Success: a specialised supplier earns a normal return and GPUs stay close enough in total cost, obtainable and useful outside mining, that entrants still compete. Failure: a supplier operating privately at much lower cost exhausts competitors' margins. The pass line, verbatim: the model names credible conditions for sustained commodity participation and names where it fails; a result needing a small network, token appreciation or scheduled ASIC death has not passed. The development cost is SUNK in the mandatory case (the opponent covers manufacturing, deployment and operation only); the paid-development cases sit beside it.

0. The result in one page

1. The DRAM-board chip (a GPU's memory system with a programmable core) passes the success statement on today's rows; the N2 SRAM die fails it once it exists with its development sunk. With development sunk, a 3-year life and power at USD 0.06 per kWh, the board's cost per accepted MH/s-hour is 307 micro-USD against the best GPU owner's 156 to 204 at the same electricity and 415 to 588 for a new entrant (0.5x to 0.7x the owner, 1.4x to 1.9x the entrant); the die's is 72 (2.2x to 2.8x the owner, 5.8x to 8.2x the entrant; at the GPU's 0.12, 3.6x to 4.6x and 7.2x to 9.9x). In the five-year runs with a per-class supply curve the board at a sunk USD 10 M holds 4.5 to 24 percent of the chain at a 24 to 69 percent margin with 6 to 16 of 17 GPU classes above water in every path; a USD 10 M die fleet holds 50 to 70 percent on landing and takes the chain by year 3 to 5 on flat and shrinking paths (0 of 17 classes above water); a USD 100 M die fleet takes it on landing in every path and runs at a loss.
2. The tariff advantage is explicit and separate from the hardware advantage (section 1). The review's 6.25x illustration (a 1.5x chip at 0.06 against a GPU at 0.25) is the first row; on the measured rows the operating advantage is the joule ratio times the tariff ratio (2.2x to 4.5x times 1x to 4.2x for the board, 3.7x to 7.8x for the die), the hardware advantage 1.3x to 4x for the board and 9x to 29x for the die, and the total a third to a half of the operating figure because power is 60 to 70 percent of an owner's cost and 30 to 40 of an entrant's.
3. The break-even electricity price is tabled for all 17 classes (section 3). A GPU owner with sunk hardware matches the board at 3 years up to 9 to 15 cents per kWh on Blackwell and 4 to 6 on Ada and Ampere; at 1 year up to 27 to 40 cents; it matches the die at 0 to 5 cents. No GPU ENTRANT matches the board at 3 years or the die at any life at any positive price except the 5070 Ti against the 1-year board (25 cents): the entrant rows are where the GPU side loses first.
4. Proving is the second income the chip does not have (section 5). A 16 GB or larger card earns USD 3 to 7 a day from internal proving at IGN 0.10 (the H100 16, the A100 9) against USD 0.2 to 1.7 a day from mining at the GPU equilibrium, and USD 5 to 12 under a proving spike; the SRAM die, the DRAM board, the 9070 XT and the Mac earn nothing from it, and the 12 GB tier earns nothing from internal proving today (measured). A GPU displaced from mining by a chip goes to proving (the operator simulation's D1: 1,500 of 9,177 cards), which is the mechanism that keeps commodity participation when the mining margin is gone.
5. Accessible supply and dependence (section 11). At the GPU equilibrium the chain's hash is 5.6 / 9.6 / 20 / 42 TH/s at IGN 0.03 / 0.10 / 0.30 / 1.00, which is 12 / 21 / 44 / 95 percent of the installed base available to mining (44.7 TH/s, approximate) across 16 NVIDIA classes, AMD and Apple; the same hash is 17 / 29 / 60 / 128 N2 wafers from one supplier, or 34,000 to 255,000 DRAM boards. Dependence on a single supplier is total for the die, partial for the board, nil for the GPU side.
6. The conditions under which the success statement holds (section 12), each with its number: (a) the chip's all-in cost within about 1.5x of the best GPU owner's at the GPU's electricity; (b) the chip's hardware per MH/s not under about a quarter of the GPU entrant's; (c) a fleet above a third of the chain costing more than a year's miner revenue; (d) GPUs keeping a resale market and a use outside mining; (e) the per-joule gap at the honest knee under about 3x; (f) the supplier's margin a normal return that does not rise with the halvings; (g) a second income (proving) for the commodity side that the specialised supplier cannot enter. The board passes all seven at a 1 to 3 year life; the die fails (a), (b), (c), (e) and (f) at every life, price path and electricity price once it exists. Against the pass line: the board's pass does not need a small network (it holds at 42 TH/s and IGN 1.00), token appreciation (it holds on the flat and shrinking paths) or scheduled ASIC death (its life axis is 1 to 5 years and the 180-day rotation is not what holds it); the die's failure is not cured by any of the three either, and the only condition that holds the die is that nobody pays to build it (the surface: IGN 0.73 for a USD 150 M project at a third of the chain over three years), which is an investor's decision, not a level the chain stays below. The model names where it fails: a sunk SRAM die of USD 10 M or more at any price in the window.

1. The tariff advantage beside the hardware advantage (D4: the electricity axis explicit)

The chip at 0.06 per kWh with farm hosting; the GPU at 0.06, 0.12 and 0.25. "Operating" is joules times tariff; "hardware" the GPU entrant's annualised hardware over the chip's; the total against the existing owner and the entrant.

Row	Joules ratio	GPU tariff over chip tariff	Operating advantage	Hardware advantage	Total vs owner / entrant	Label
The review's illustration: a 1.5x chip at 0.06 against a GPU at 0.25	1.5x	4.17x	6.25x	n/a	n/a	the review
GDDR7 board, 3 y, vs 5070 Ti at 0.06 / 0.12 / 0.25	2.2x	1x / 2x / 4.2x	2.2x / 4.3x / 9.0x	1.3x	0.5x / 1.4x; 0.9x / 1.7x; 1.6x / 2.4x	modelled
GDDR7 board, 3 y, vs 5080	2.6x	the same	2.6x / 5.2x / 10.9x	1.9x	0.7x / 1.9x; 1.1x / 2.3x; 2.0x / 3.2x	modelled
GDDR7 board, 3 y, vs 4090	4.5x		4.5x / 9.1x / 18.9x	4.0x	1.2x / 3.8x; 1.9x / 4.6x; 3.5x / 6.2x	modelled
N2 SRAM die, 3 y, vs 5070 Ti	3.7x		3.7x / 7.4x / 15.4x	9.3x	2.2x / 5.8x; 3.6x / 7.2x; 6.8x / 10.4x	modelled
N2 SRAM die, 3 y, vs 5080	4.5x		4.5x / 9.0x / 18.7x	13.8x	2.8x / 8.2x; 4.6x / 9.9x; 8.5x / 13.8x	modelled
N2 SRAM die, 3 y, vs 4090	7.8x		7.8x / 15.6x / 32.4x	28.7x	5.0x / 16.4x; 8.1x / 19.5x; 14.8x / 26.2x	modelled

Reading: the tariff multiplies the operating advantage one for one, as the review says, and the total is a third to a half of it; the board's total against a Blackwell card at its knee is under 1x (owner) to 2.4x (entrant) across the whole axis at 3 years, the coexistence band; the die's 2.2x to 14x is not.

2. Cheap and dear electricity: the GPU population's cost per accepted unit (D4: cheap and dear electricity)

Cost per accepted MH/s-hour (micro-USD; accepted = 97 percent of raw: rejects 0.5, downtime 2.0, epoch preparation and propagation 0.5; pool fee 1 percent). The existing owner (hardware sunk; power, 5 percent wear, fees) and the new entrant (buys new or used, runs two years, resells at the table's fraction).

Card	Owner at 0.06 / 0.12 / 0.25	Entrant, new, at 0.06 / 0.12 / 0.25	Entrant, used	Hardware share of the entrant at 0.12	Wh per MH/s-hour	Alternative use (rental yield, approximate)	Label
RTX 5090	243 / 388 / 704	661 / 807 / 1,122	800 / 945 / 1,261	64 percent	2.33	USD 0.3 to 0.5 an hour, 3x to 5x its mining cost	measured floor
RTX 5080	204 / 332 / 611	588 / 716 / 995	650 / 779 / 1,058	64	2.06	USD 0.15 to 0.25 an hour	measured floor
RTX 5070 Ti	156 / 263 / 493	415 / 521 / 751	453 / 560 / 790	59	1.70	USD 0.1 to 0.2 an hour	modelled knee
RTX 5070	175 / 284 / 521	515 / 624 / 861	558 / 668 / 905	65	1.75		modelled knee
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB	260 / 407 / 727	921 / 1,069 / 1,388	956 / 1,104 / 1,423	72	2.36		modelled knee
RTX 5060	225 / 364 / 663	734 / 872 / 1,171	768 / 906 / 1,205	68	2.21		modelled knee
RTX 4090	357 / 580 / 1,065	1,181 / 1,405 / 1,890	1,163 / 1,387 / 1,872	68	3.58	USD 0.3 to 0.4 an hour	modelled knee, stock measured
RTX 4080	312 / 531 / 1,006	1,011 / 1,231 / 1,706	879 / 1,099 / 1,574	64	3.51		modelled knee
RTX 4070	300 / 524 / 1,008	854 / 1,078 / 1,562	778 / 1,001 / 1,486	58	3.58		measured tune
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	336 / 574 / 1,090	1,159 / 1,397 / 1,913	969 / 1,207 / 1,723	66	3.81		modelled knee
RTX 3090 (used)	384 / 666 / 1,276	1,272 / 1,554 / 2,164	1,091 / 1,373 / 1,983	64	4.51		modelled cap
RTX 3080 (used)	310 / 573 / 1,141	754 / 1,016 / 1,585	661 / 923 / 1,492	48	4.20		modelled cap
RTX 3060 (used)	408 / 768 / 1,550	847 / 1,208 / 1,989	754 / 1,114 / 1,895	40	5.77		modelled cap
RX 9070 XT	657 / 1,151 / 2,220	1,617 / 2,111 / 3,180	1,668 / 2,162 / 3,231	53	7.90		measured
H100 (hosted)	1,313 / 1,438 / 1,709	8,374 / 8,499 / 8,770	7,880 / 8,004 / 8,275	97	2.00	USD 2 to 3 an hour: never mines	modelled lock
A100 (used)	775 / 955 / 1,346	6,615 / 6,796 / 7,187	4,388 / 4,568 / 4,960	95	2.89	USD 1 an hour: never mines	modelled
Apple M5 Max (reported, not headlined)	789 / 876 / 1,066	4,033 / 4,120 / 4,310	4,690 / 4,778 / 4,967	96	1.40	a workstation: an owner only	measured

The chip rows, development sunk (the mandatory case), farm hosting USD 0.02 per kWh-equivalent on top:

Chip	0.5 y at 0.06 / 0.12 / 0.25	1 y	2 y	3 y	5 y	Hardware / power at 0.06, 3 y	Label
GDDR7 board with an N5 core	1,414 / 1,463 / 1,570	750 / 799 / 906	418 / 467 / 574	307 / 356 / 463	219 / 268 / 375	239 / 65	modelled
HBM3 one stack with a core	2,123 / 2,164 / 2,252	1,104 / 1,145 / 1,233	594 / 635 / 723	425 / 465 / 553	289 / 329 / 417	367 / 54	modelled
N2 SRAM die with the core	226 / 255 / 317	134 / 163 / 225	87 / 116 / 178	72 / 101 / 163	60 / 88 / 151	33 / 38	modelled
N2 SRAM die at the bare-lane floor	202 / 212 / 235	109 / 120 / 142	63 / 73 / 96	47 / 58 / 80	35 / 45 / 68	33 / 14	modelled, the worst case

3. Break-even electricity prices for all 17 classes (D4: the output per class)

Cents per kWh at which the GPU's cost per accepted unit equals the chip's all-in at 0.06 per kWh; the OWNER figure (hardware sunk) and the ENTRANT figure (hardware bought); "under 0" means no positive price matches.

Class	GDDR7 board 1 y: owner / entrant	GDDR7 board 3 y	SRAM die 1 y	SRAM die 3 y
RTX 5090	27 / 10	9 / under 0	1.5 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 5080	32 / 14	11 / under 0	2.7 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 5070 Ti	40 / 25	15 / 0	4.7 / under 0	1.2 / under 0
RTX 5070	38 / 19	13 / under 0	3.8 / under 0	0.4 / under 0
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB	26 / under 0	8 / under 0	0.9 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 5060	29 / 7	10 / under 0	2.0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 4090	17 / under 0	5 / under 0	0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 4080	18 / under 0	6 / under 0	1.1 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 4070	18 / 3	6 / under 0	1.5 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	16 / under 0	5 / under 0	0.9 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 3090 (used)	14 / under 0	4 / under 0	0.7 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
RTX 3080 (used)	16 / 6	6 / under 0	2.0 / under 0	0.5 / under 0
RTX 3060 (used)	12 / 4	4 / under 0	1.4 / under 0	0.4 / under 0
RX 9070 XT	7 / under 0	2 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
H100 (hosted)	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
A100 (used)	5 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0
Apple M5 Max	3 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0	under 0 / under 0

Reading: the board at 1 year is beaten by every Blackwell owner below 26 to 40 cents and by the 5070 Ti entrant below 25; at 3 years by Blackwell owners below 8 to 15 cents and by no entrant. The die is matched by no entrant and by owners only below 0 to 5 cents. The GPU side's electricity price is the board's whole variable and irrelevant to the die.

4. GPU replacement and resale on both sides, with the generation step on the chip side too (D4)

Who	Against the DRAM board (bought at twice the hardware term, the manufacturer's half)	Against the SRAM die (bought, the same)	What it means
A Blackwell owner at 0.06 to 0.12	never switches: the bought board at 3 years is 550 to 600 micro-USD against the owner's 156 to 332	switches at 0.12 (105 to 134 against 263 to 332); near indifferent at 0.06	the die replaces Blackwell owners at normal grid prices; the board never does
An Ada or Ampere owner at 0.12	near indifferent at 3 years (550 to 600 against 524 to 768); switches at 0.25	switches at every price	the board retires only the oldest cards at dear electricity, which the generation does anyway
A new entrant choosing between a new 5070 Ti and a bought chip at 0.12	the board at 3 years (about 600) is 1.15x the card's 521: the card wins; at 1 year the card wins 2x	the bought die (134) is 0.26x the card: the die wins 4x	an entrant market with a bought die has no GPU entrants; one with a bought board keeps them
The GPU generation at year 3 (1.5x per joule at the same price, the old card resold at the table's fraction)	cuts the entrant's cost 25 percent and the owner's power 33 percent: the board at 3 years then reads 1.5x to 1.7x the new entrant, in band	the die's advantage falls 25 to 33 percent, from 7x to 5x on the entrant: still out of band	the GPU side's own curve narrows the board's gap by the second generation and never closes the die's
The chip's generation at year 3 (a node step, 1.5x per joule, re-bought at the same silicon price)	the board's power term falls a third (65 to 43 micro-USD of 307): 2 percent of its cost; its hardware term is unchanged	the die's 38 to 25: 4 percent of 72	the chip side's generation moves the totals under 5 percent: the chip's cost is hardware, the GPU's is power, so the generation helps the GPU more
Resale	the GPU resells at 25 to 55 percent after two years (section 2); the chips at 0		the resale market is the GPU entrant's whole hedge and the chip has none, which is why the chip's life is the axis that moves everything (section 7)

5. Changing proving demand: proving revenue as a second income axis per class (D4: new)

The resolution's shape (the research lane, 17:0x UK): the tip stays whole to the miner; provers are paid the 20 percent pool per block plus an explicit user-funded proving fee with congestion pricing; the burn separate; the hard cap and no development tax kept. The internal pool at IGN 0.10 is USD 27,400 a day (0.2 x 0.77 B / 0.8 / 365), shared by proving capacity (a 5,000-card fleet drawn from the classes that can prove, approximate); external demand USD 2,000 a day at launch (spec 05's grid), 20,000 under a spike, 90 percent to the provers who deliver. The 12 GB tier's internal row is the fleet lane's measured zero (0 paid in 313 claims on Devnet 3, 8 October 2026).

Class	Memory	Shard s (bench)	Internal proving, USD per card-day	Plus external at launch	Plus external at a 10x spike	Mining at the GPU equilibrium, USD per card-day	Power per day at 0.12	Label
RTX 5090	32	6.3	7.42	7.90	12.29	1.69	0.86	modelled on measured shard times
RTX 5080	16	8.0	5.84	6.22	9.68	0.89	0.63	the same
RTX 5070 Ti	16	7.0	6.67	7.11	11.06	0.96	0.58	the same
RTX 5070	12	4.8	0 (measured zero)	0.64	6.40	0.51	0.40	measured zero, modelled external
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB	16	11.6	4.03	4.29	6.68	0.24	0.26	modelled
RTX 5060	8	12.0	0 (measured zero)	0.26	2.56	0.21	0.23
RTX 4090	24	6.3	7.42	7.90	12.29	0.73	0.81
RTX 4080	16	7.5	6.23	6.64	10.33	0.56	0.63
RTX 4070	12	12.1	0 (measured zero)	0.25	2.54	0.39	0.32
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	16	11.6	4.03	4.29	6.68	0.22	0.22
RTX 3090 (used)	24	14.9	3.14	3.34	5.20	0.47	0.66
RTX 3080 (used)	10	7.1	0 (measured zero)	0.43	4.33	0.51	0.60
RTX 3060 (used)	12	14.4	0 (measured zero)	0.21	2.13	0.30	0.30
RX 9070 XT	16	none	cannot prove (no CUDA)			0.24	0.43
H100 (hosted)	80	3.0	15.57	16.60	25.81	1.13	1.01
A100 (used)	80	5.0	9.34	9.96	15.49	0.75	0.72
Apple M5 Max	36	none	cannot prove			0.34	0.11
The SRAM die, the DRAM board, any hash engine		none	0: a hash engine cannot prove	0	0	the whole chain's mining		by construction

Reading: at launch-shape demand a proving-capable card earns 4x to 8x more per day from internal proving than from mining at the GPU equilibrium, and the pool is shared by few enough cards that it pays even at 0.25 per kWh; under a spike the external fee adds 50 to 70 percent. The chip has none of it. At zero proving demand (the pool is a launch subsidy and the external market empty) the second income is 0 and the commodity side falls back to mining alone, which is the first cut's model; at the fleet lane's measured efficiency (5.5 percent of proving card-time paid on a day with a fault) the internal rows are 0.4 to 0.9 USD a day, still above mining for the 24 GB and datacentre classes. The condition this adds to section 12 is (g): a second income for the commodity side that the specialised supplier cannot enter; it holds while proving demand exists and the 16 GB and larger tiers can prove.

6. Private mining and hardware sales; cheaper derivative chips (D4)

From the surface (the floor file 4.4, the mission lane's shape), p* is the break-even price in USD per IGN:

Entrant	C_dev 20 M (a DRAM board), L 3 y, q 0.3 / 1.0	150 M (the SRAM die), 3 y, 0.3 / 1.0	Reading
The operator self-mining a first design	0.055 / 0.017 (USD 43 / 13 M a year of miner revenue)	0.73 / 0.22 (561 / 168 M)	the first entrant self-mines
The manufacturer selling hardware (keeps half the profit)	0.11 / 0.034	1.50 / 0.45	about 2x the operator's bar
The revision entrant (a second design at 0.3 x C_dev, T0 1 y)	0.019 / 0.006	0.12 / 0.04	a derivative costs a third and ships a year sooner; the sunk case bounds it
The shared-cost entrant (three share one design)	0.040 / 0.012	0.24 / 0.07
The hybrid (self-mine a year, then sell)	0.07	1.10	between the two
Development SUNK (the mandatory case)	0: the entrant pays manufacturing, deployment and operation only; its rows are section 2's chip rows	0	the whole threat is this case

With development paid, every chip is ABOVE the best GPU entrant (415 to 588 micro-USD) at IGN 0.10 and below; the die falls below it only from IGN 0.30 on a 3-year life; the board with paid development never does inside the window.

7. Several productive lifetimes (D4)

Life	GDDR7 board, sunk, at 0.06 (micro-USD)	Against the 5070 Ti owner / entrant	SRAM die, sunk	Against the 5070 Ti owner / entrant	Reading
0.5 y (the fixed-lane chip under the 180-day rotation)	1,414	0.1x / 0.3x	226	0.7x / 1.8x	neither chip pays at half a year; the board is 3x worse than a GPU entrant
1 y	750	0.2x / 0.6x	134	1.2x / 3.1x	the board loses to every Blackwell entrant; the die is in band against owners
2 y	418	0.4x / 1.0x	87	1.8x / 4.8x
3 y (the programmable chip's default)	307	0.5x / 1.4x	72	2.2x / 5.8x	the board's coexistence band; the die out of it
5 y	219	0.7x / 1.9x	60	2.6x / 6.9x

The rotation (layer 3) sets the fixed-lane chip's life at 0.5 years and does nothing to a programmable chip; its value is the factor between the first and the fourth row, not a wall, and the pass line's "scheduled ASIC death" is not what holds either chip here: the board holds at every life from 1 year on its hardware term, the die holds at none.

8. Growing and shrinking networks, reduced issuance (D4)

Five years with a per-class supply curve (section 9's rule), the emission halving in years 3 and 5, three price paths, a sunk chip fleet entering at the start of year 2. The chip's joules improve 1.5x at year 4 (a node step).

Path, fleet	Year 2	Year 3	Year 5	GPU classes above water (of 17)	Reading
Growing x2 from 0.10; a USD 1 M die fleet (1.3 TH/s)	6 percent of 20 TH/s; margin 92 percent	5 percent	3 percent of 39 TH/s	14, 15, 16	coexistence by dilution: the supplier earns 90 percent margins on a tiny share; not a normal return, but no class leaves
Growing; USD 10 M die (12.8 TH/s)	50 percent	43 percent	30 percent	12, 13, 15	half the chain on landing; dilutes to 30 percent by year 4 as GPUs re-enter at the higher price; margins 88 to 93 percent
Growing; USD 100 M die (128 TH/s)	100 percent; margin 49 percent	100 percent	99 percent	0, 0, 4	failure: one buyer holds the chain for five years; four classes return in year 4 at IGN 0.80
Growing; USD 10 M board (1.8 TH/s)	9 percent; margin 65 percent	7 percent	4.5 percent	14, 15, 16	coexistence at a 57 to 69 percent margin
Flat 0.10; USD 1 M die	9 percent	12 percent	19 percent of 6.9 TH/s	12, 11, 6	the halvings raise the share; six classes left by year 5
Flat; USD 10 M die	70 percent	89 percent	100 percent	6, 6, 0	failure by year 5
Flat; USD 100 M die	100 percent; margin -1 percent	-102 percent	-233 percent	0	failure for both: the fleet is larger than the revenue
Flat; USD 10 M board	14 percent; margin 57 percent	16 percent; 34	24 percent; 27	12, 11, 6	coexistence at a normal return (27 to 57 percent)
Shrinking x0.5 from 0.30; USD 1 M die	7 percent	17 percent	74 percent of 1.7 TH/s	13, 11, 2	failure in year 5 at USD 4 M of revenue
Shrinking; USD 10 M die	58 percent	96 percent	100 percent; margin -77 percent	11, 3, 0	failure from year 3
Shrinking; USD 10 M board	10 percent; margin 62 percent	22 percent; 28	91 percent; -30 percent	13, 8, 2	the board too takes a shrinking chain at USD 4 M of revenue, and loses money doing it

Reading: reduced issuance (the halvings) and a shrinking price move every row toward the chip's share, and a USD 1 M die fleet is 74 percent of a USD 4 M chain. The board coexists at a normal return in the growing and flat paths and takes the chain only when the chain is worth less than its fleet; the die's USD 10 M fleet takes the chain on every flat or shrinking path by year 3 to 5. The pass line's "small network": the board's pass holds at 42 TH/s and IGN 1.00 (the growing path's year 4), so it does not need one; the die's failure is worst in a small network, and a large one only delays it.

9. Miners react with no fixed shares (D4: new)

The reaction rule replacing the first cut's single rule: each class participates with a fraction of its base, the third of the base already owned joining as revenue per MH/s-hour rises from its owner cost to its entrant cost (linearly) and the other two thirds entering when revenue exceeds the entrant cost; the installed base is the cap; re-entry on a price rise is automatic (the growing path's year 4: 12.9 to 37.7 TH/s as 16 of 17 classes come back); the chip fleet is fixed after entry. The equilibrium revenue per MH/s-hour and the GPU hash are solved each year by bisection. Against the single-rule first cut the shares move: the USD 10 M die fleet holds 50 percent on landing in the growing path (the first cut read 37) and 70 percent on the flat path (73), and the board holds 9 to 24 percent (10 to 31): the per-class curve lets the cheaper classes stay longer and the dearer ones leave sooner, and the totals are within 5 points of the first cut. The operator simulation carries the same reaction at a one-day step with proving as a third choice; its D1 shock (a 1 TH/s die fleet) moves 1,500 of 9,177 mining cards to proving.

10. The operator simulation (D4 item 2, beside this model)

docs/analysis/class-v6/operator-simulation.md: operators choose per day among mine, internal prove, external prove and off by profit at the marginal rate, under four shocks. At launch-shape demand every shock is restored in 0 periods (idle GPU capacity dwarfs the proving work). In a capacity-limited world (1 percent of the cards, the measured 5.5 percent proving efficiency) a lasting 1,000x proving spike is NOT restored within 150 periods when the internal pool is a fixed sum (provers go to the external fee market and the internal backlog grows without bound) and is restored in 35 periods with the resolution's congestion-priced internal proving fee; the price fall, the departure of the six largest proving cohorts, the mining entrant and the proving entrant are restored in 0 periods in both worlds. No parameter was changed by hand in any run. The one design finding: the fixed pool is a subsidy, not a price, and internal proving needs the congestion-priced fee the resolution gives it.

11. Accessible supply, and the dependence on suppliers and operators (D4: its own table)

IGN price	Network hash at the GPU equilibrium (per-class curve)	Share of the installed base available to mining (44.7 TH/s, approximate)	GPU suppliers	In N2 SRAM dies / wafers from ONE supplier	In DRAM boards	The largest single GPU operator today (a 1 percent fleet)	Label
0.03	5.6 TH/s	12 percent	NVIDIA (16 of 17 classes), AMD, Apple; tens of millions of cards in the world	1,000 dies / 17 wafers	34,000	0.06 TH/s	modelled
0.10	9.6	21	the same	1,700 / 29	58,000	0.10	modelled
0.30	20	44	the same	3,600 / 60	119,000	0.20	modelled
1.00	42	95	the same; past this the installed base binds and used prices rise	7,700 / 128	255,000	0.42	modelled

The GPU side has three suppliers, a used market, a use outside mining (the rental yields of section 2) and no operator above a percent of the hash; the die's whole chain is one wafer allocation (17 to 128 wafers of a node booked to 2028, claimed) and the board's a Bitmain-class run of 34,000 to 255,000 units with a commodity memory bill. Dependence on a single supplier: total for the die at every price, partial for the board (a run that size is visible and takes months), nil for the GPU side; dependence on a single operator: a chip fleet is one operator by construction (the operator simulation's D1), a GPU fleet of the same hash is tens of thousands of owners.

12. The conditions under which the success statement holds (the result)

Condition	The number on today's rows	DRAM board	SRAM die
(a) the chip's all-in cost per accepted unit at its own electricity within about 1.5x of the best GPU owner's at the GPU's electricity	the owner at 0.12: 263 to 332 micro-USD (5070 Ti, 5080)	307 at 3 y, 750 at 1 y: PASSES	72 to 134: FAILS at every life
(b) the chip's annualised hardware per MH/s not below about a quarter of the GPU entrant's	the 5080 entrant's hardware 460 micro-USD	239 to 677: PASSES	33 to 95: FAILS
(c) a fleet above a third of the chain's hash costs more than a year's miner revenue	at IGN 0.10 the chain is 9.6 TH/s, a third 3.2	USD 18 M of boards against USD 40 to 80 M: PASSES above IGN 0.05	USD 2.5 M of dies: FAILS at every price under about 3
(d) GPUs keep a resale market and a use outside mining	resale 25 to 55 percent after two years; rental 3x to 5x the mining cost	PASSES (the GPU side's property)	PASSES (the same)
(e) the per-joule gap at the honest knee stays under about 3x	Blackwell at the knee 1.70 to 2.06 microjoules	2.2x to 2.6x: PASSES	3.7x to 4.5x: FAILS (the bare-lane floor 10x to 12x)
(f) the supplier's gross margin is a normal return (under about 70 percent) and does not rise with the halvings	section 8	27 to 69 percent, falling with the halvings: PASSES	85 to 93 percent, rising, or a loss once it is the chain: FAILS
(g) a second income (proving) for the commodity side that the specialised supplier cannot enter	section 5: USD 3 to 7 a card-day at launch demand on the 16 GB and larger tiers; 0 for any hash engine	PASSES (the board cannot prove either, which is the GPU's advantage over it)	PASSES (the same)

The result. The success statement holds for the stored-dataset DRAM-board chip at a 1 to 3 year life on today's rows, in every price path, at every electricity price on the axis, with the GPU side's own generation curve narrowing the gap further and proving as a second income the chip cannot enter; its pass needs no small network (it holds at 42 TH/s and IGN 1.00), no token appreciation (it holds on the flat and shrinking paths) and no scheduled ASIC death (the life axis, not the rotation, is what the board lives on). The statement does not hold for the N2 SRAM die once that die exists with its development sunk, at any life, price path or electricity price; a small network makes it worse, appreciation only delays it, and the rotation does not touch a programmable die. The model names where it fails: a sunk SRAM die fleet of USD 10 M or more at any price in the window, and of USD 1 M in a shrinking chain. The only condition that holds the die is that nobody pays to build it (section 6: IGN 0.73 for a USD 150 M project at a third of the chain over three years, 0.22 taking the chain, 0.12 to 0.16 for a revision), which is a statement about an investor's decision and is carried as such, not as a level the chain stays below.

What the chain controls, from the model: the honest side's cost per accepted unit (every cent of GPU electricity and every point of the knee moves (a) and (e); the lock already moves a Blackwell card 34 to 41 percent), the second income (proving demand and the congestion-priced fee that keeps internal proving served, the operator simulation's finding), the share detector that makes (c) visible the week it fails, and the dataset floor as the ticket (USD 1,500 to 3,000 per die at the schedule, which moves (c) by 2x to 4x and nothing else). Nothing in the hash moves (a), (b) or (e) for the die by the factor they need.

13. The D4 checklist, line by line

Item	Where	Status
Growing and shrinking networks	section 8	in
Reduced issuance	section 8 (the halvings in years 3 and 5)	in
Cheap and dear electricity	sections 1 to 3	in
GPU replacement and resale on both sides, the 1.5x generation on the chip side too	section 4	in
Changing proving demand	section 5 (zero, launch, spike; the resolution's shape; the 12 GB measured zero)	in
Private mining and hardware sales	section 6	in
Several productive lifetimes (0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5)	section 7	in
Cheaper derivative chips	section 6 (the revision and shared-cost rows)	in
Miners react with no fixed shares (per-class supply curve, installed base cap, re-entry)	section 9	in
The outputs: cost advantage, replacement economics, accessible supply, break-even electricity per class (17), supplier and operator dependence as its own table	sections 1, 4, 11, 3, 11	in
The tariff advantage shown separately from the hardware advantage, the 6.25x illustration first	section 1	in
The operator simulation	section 10 and its own file	in (first run)
The k lane's placed rows and the adversary lane's whole-machine rows	the chip rows stand until they land	owed by others
Per-card agents, the hybrid mode, the measured stage times in the simulation	the simulation's section 4	second cut

14. Unverified and owed

• Every chip-side figure is modelled; no chip has been measured. The chip's hardware per MH/s (USD 0.8 for the die with the system, 5.6 for the board) is the term conditions (b) and (c) rest on and is approximate within 2x.
• The card prices are street approximations of October 2026; the installed-base counts available to mining are approximate (the cap of 44.7 TH/s); the 5090's street price has been 2x MSRP this year.
• The Ada and Ampere knees are modelled (no rented host allows the lock); the Blackwell floors are measured on the 5090, 5080 and 4070.
• The proving rows rest on the bench table's shard times and the fleet lane's one measured day (with a fault); the proving fleet (5,000 cards) and the pool sharing by capacity are assumptions.
• The accepted-work factor, the wear allowance, the hosting and the rental yields are approximate.
• The emission beyond year 5 and the proving pool's fade are outside the run.
• Nothing was run on the Mac; the scripts ran on build-3 (first cut) and build-4 (this cut).