ElphaPex Miners 2026: DG1, DG2 & DG Hydro Compared (Litecoin & Dogecoin)

Until 2024, if you wanted to mine Litecoin and Dogecoin seriously, you bought a Bitmain Antminer L-series and that was the end of the conversation. Then ElphaPex shipped the DG1 — 11 Gh/s at 0.31 J/Mh — and briefly held the title of the most efficient Scrypt ASIC on the market.

Two years on, ElphaPex is the only manufacturer that builds Scrypt machines and nothing else, with eight models running from a $492 desktop unit to a $6,799 industrial box. No other vendor covers that spread. This guide walks the full 2026 range, the real earnings at current Litecoin and Dogecoin prices, and the specific electricity price each model needs to break even.

ElphaPex in 2026: the Scrypt specialist

ElphaPex hardware is built by FoundationLogic, and the DG1 launched in early 2024 as a direct answer to Bitmain's ageing L7. Independent bench testing by Luxor's Hashrate Index found the DG1+ actually beat its own spec sheet — 15,130 Mh/s at 4,000 W, or 0.26 J/Mh at 25 °C against a rated 0.28 — and the DG1 lost only 2.7% of its hashrate when pushed to 40 °C. That is unusually good thermal behaviour.

An honest word on where they stand now. ElphaPex led on efficiency in 2024; it does not in 2026. Its best model, the DG2+, runs at 0.19 J/Mh. Bitmain's L11 Pro reaches 0.172 and Bitdeer's SealMiner DL1 hit 0.149 in mid-2026. ElphaPex's advantage today is price per gigahash and range breadth, not raw efficiency — and in the sub-$1,500 and sub-$800 tiers, Bitmain and Bitdeer simply do not compete.

How ElphaPex model names work

One trap worth flagging: the DG Hydro 1 is a DG1-generation machine (0.31 J/Mh) in a hydro chassis, despite its headline 20 Gh/s. It buys density and silence, not economy.

Full ElphaPex range compared

Specifications verified against ASIC Miner Value listings, 5 August 2026.

How Litecoin and Dogecoin merge mining doubles your payout

Every ElphaPex machine mines Scrypt, and Scrypt is where Litecoin and Dogecoin overlap. Since 2014 Dogecoin has accepted auxiliary proof-of-work (AuxPoW) from Litecoin miners, meaning a single share of work is submitted to both chains at once. Same hashrate, same electricity, two separate payouts.

There is nothing to configure beyond pointing the miner at a merge-mining pool — F2Pool, ViaBTC and AntPool between them handle around 80% of Dogecoin's hashrate. What buyers should understand is the split: for an 18 Gh/s DG2, roughly $7.45/day arrives as DOGE and $1.07/day as LTC. About 87% of your revenue is Dogecoin exposure, whatever the machine is nominally called.

What a Scrypt miner earns right now

Network state on 5 August 2026: LTC $43.31, DOGE $0.0697, Litecoin network 2.91 Ph/s at 100.80 T difficulty, Dogecoin 2.78 Ph/s at 40.75 T. That works out to roughly $0.466 per Gh/s per day net of a 1.5% pool fee.

Assumptions: 24-hour operation at nameplate hashrate, flat difficulty and coin prices, before hosting fees, hardware failure and tax. Difficulty rises over time, so real payback is longer than the arithmetic suggests.

The break-even electricity price for every model

This is the single most useful number when buying a Scrypt miner, and almost nobody publishes it. At $0.466/Gh/day, a machine breaks even at roughly $0.466 ÷ (24 × J/Mh) per kWh:

UK and EU domestic electricity sits far above every figure in that table. At $0.10/kWh only the DG2+ is even marginally viable; everything else loses money. Scrypt mining in 2026 is a cheap-power game — either you have industrial rates, or you host.

ElphaPex vs Bitmain, VolcMiner and Bitdeer

Bitdeer took the efficiency crown in 2026 and Bitmain's L11 line sits second. The DG2+ is roughly L11-class but slightly behind, and comfortably ahead of the still-widely-sold L9. Where ElphaPex is genuinely unmatched is at the bottom of the range — no other manufacturer sells a credible Scrypt miner under $800. See our Bitmain range guide and Bitdeer SealMiner guide for the alternatives.

Which ElphaPex miner should you buy?

• Best value, and the standout of the range: DG1+ ($1,445) — about $103 per Gh/s and the fastest payback in the line-up at roughly 10 months on hosted power. Luxor's testing found it exceeding its rated efficiency.
• Best efficiency: DG2+ ($6,799) — 0.19 J/Mh and the only ElphaPex still near break-even at $0.10/kWh.
• Best home and quiet option: DG2 Mini ($711) — 45 dB, 530 W, standard wall socket, Wi-Fi. More efficient than the cheaper DG Home 1 and the better buy despite costing more.
• Cheapest entry: DG Home 1 ($492) — liquid-cooled and quiet, but 0.31 J/Mh means it needs power below $0.063/kWh.
• Best output per box: DG Hydro 1 ($4,029) if you already run a water loop — density and silence, not economy.

Browse the full miner range, compare Scrypt options in our Dogecoin miner buyer's guide, or model your own numbers on the mining calculator. All figures accurate as of 5 August 2026 and subject to coin price and difficulty movement.