FutureBit Brings Apollo III Bitcoin Miner to Four Micro Center Stores

FutureBit’s Apollo III makes its first retail-store debut

FutureBit is beginning to sell its Apollo III Full Node through four Micro Center stores, marking the Brooklyn-based company’s first brick-and-mortar launch for a bitcoin miner. The locations are in Brooklyn, Miami, Tustin, California, and Austin, Texas. The arrangement changes how North American customers can access the device: instead of ordering only from FutureBit, shoppers can visit a participating computer store and take a unit home.

The four-store launch is timed to coincide with the opening of Micro Center’s new Austin location. The retailer describes that shop as its 31st U.S. store and its third in Texas. Customers can also reserve a unit online for pickup at a store, according to the announcement. That option connects online ordering with in-person collection, although the company did not specify how many Apollo III units would be available at each location.

Micro Center’s in-store price was not disclosed, so FutureBit’s own website is the only supplied reference point for cost. There, the Apollo III Full Node is listed at $1,099.99 without a storage drive, $1,299.99 with a 1-terabyte SSD, and $1,399.99 with a 2-terabyte SSD. FutureBit also lists a miner-only Standard model starting at $899.99; it does not include the full-node function.

A compact miner with a full-node option

Until this launch, North American customers had to order the Apollo III from FutureBit’s website, which the company says has units in stock and ships them in two to three days. A retail shelf gives prospective buyers a chance to see the hardware and ask questions before purchasing, while same-day carryout is possible for in-stock units. The practical benefit is a new buying route, not a confirmed change to the device’s price or performance.

FutureBit founder John Stefanopoulos described the Brooklyn store as a familiar place for the company: when FutureBit began, he said, its team made regular visits to Micro Center’s DIY electronics section to buy parts. The company is now bringing a product it designed nearby into that same store. The story gives the launch a local connection, while its broader reach depends on sales at the other three participating locations.

The Apollo III is a small cube measuring 6.5 by 6.5 by 6 inches and weighing 6.5 pounds. FutureBit says it is assembled in the United States and built around new 3-nanometer, American-designed chips, a custom controller and 8 GB of memory. The machine combines bitcoin mining with the ability to run a full node, positioning it as a home-scale device rather than a miner alone.

Home mining remains a different proposition

FutureBit rates the Full Node at up to 18 terahashes per second in Turbo mode, with power use of about 325 watts. Its Eco mode is listed at roughly 12 TH/s and 150 watts, while Super Eco is rated at about 8 TH/s and 80 watts. These modes offer different reported combinations of computing output and power consumption; the figures alone do not establish how much a particular owner would earn.

The listed power range is adjustable from 50 to 400 watts, and the product page says its power measurements are taken at the board and may vary by 10%. Noise also changes by operating mode: FutureBit lists less than 35 decibels for Eco mode and about 55 decibels for Turbo. The unit includes a one-year limited warranty, while its full-node and solo-mining features require an SSD that is not included in the base Full Node configuration.

The Apollo III includes a built-in solo mining pool, and owners can also direct it to a standard bitcoin mining pool. That flexibility does not make the device comparable in scale with industrial mining operations. Bitcoin Magazine previously noted that a single Apollo III running at 18 TH/s represents only a small share of the Bitcoin network, and that expected solo-block waiting times for a home setup of this size could be measured in centuries at recent difficulty.

Store expansion and availability remain open questions

FutureBit has framed home mining as something other than a cost-based contest with industrial mines. The company’s stated aim includes putting more hash rate and more nodes in living rooms, rather than claiming a single small machine can match a large operation. The full-node capability is part of that positioning, but the supplied details do not quantify its effects on network participation or establish a financial return for an individual buyer.

A rare solo-mining result illustrates both the possibility and the uncertainty: a miner using FutureBit’s Apollo Solo setup found block 973,262 on Oct. 26 and received the full 3.154 bitcoin reward. That reported event is not evidence that an Apollo III owner should expect a similar outcome. The source gives no odds or expected revenue for this retail product, and its discussion of long solo-block waiting times underscores how exceptional such a result can be.

FutureBit has made consumer mining hardware since 2015, and this Micro Center test puts one of its devices into a conventional retail setting for the first time. What happens next is not yet clear: FutureBit did not say whether sales will expand beyond Brooklyn, Miami, Tustin and Austin. Store-level pricing and inventory also remain undisclosed, leaving prospective buyers without confirmation of local availability or the final checkout cost.

Source: BitcoinMagazine