IceRiver miners 2026: every KS, AL, AE and XP model compared

IceRiver is the only ASIC manufacturer that has committed seriously to three separate algorithms at once — Kaspa's kHeavyHash, Alephium's Blake3 and Aleo's zkSNARK proving — plus a recent fourth on Xphere. That breadth is genuinely unusual, and it makes the range confusing to shop, because the model names follow no pattern anyone has explained: KS, AL, AE and XP prefixes, then numbers that do not rank cleanly, then Lite, L and M suffixes that mean different things in different series.

This page is the full reference — every current IceRiver model, what it does, what it costs and the electricity price at which it stops losing money. Rates are from Minerstat's live network data in September 2026 and profitability is computed at $0.08/kWh, a realistic hosted or good industrial rate.

One honest headline before the tables: at 8 cents, most of this range is underwater. That is not a criticism of IceRiver — it is the state of altcoin ASIC economics in 2026, and it is precisely why these machines are cheap. They are viable, and in some cases very attractive, but only on genuinely cheap power.

Decoding the model names

Within a series, the suffixes are the trap. Lite means a genuinely smaller, lower-power machine — the KS7 Lite is 4.2 Th/s at 500 W against the KS7's 30 Th/s at 3,500 W, a different product entirely. L and M on the KS5 are not sizes but revisions: the KS5M is faster than the KS5L at identical power. Higher numbers generally mean newer, but not always faster — the KS5M at 15 Th/s beats the KS7 Lite at 4.2 Th/s despite the lower series number.

The Kaspa range (KS series)

Kaspa pays roughly $0.1985 per Th/s per day at current network conditions (345.8 Ph/s, KAS around $0.04). Break-even is daily revenue divided by daily kilowatt-hours.

The KS7 pair are the only IceRiver Kaspa machines worth considering, and the KS7 Lite is the quiet standout: 500 W means it runs from an ordinary domestic socket, makes far less noise than a 3,500 W machine, and needs only 6.9 cents — essentially the same break-even as its big sibling at an eighth of the power. For a home setting that combination is rare.

The KS5L and KS5M look tempting at $459–465 and are not. Both need power below 3.6 cents, which is under what Riot Platforms achieves at gigawatt scale after grid credits. Buying either without a sub-4-cent contract is buying a space heater.

For context on the wider Kaspa market — including where Bitmain's KS7 sits against these — see our Kaspa miner price guide. The short version: Bitmain's 45 Th/s KS7 is currently the only kHeavyHash machine comfortably clearing 8 cents.

The Alephium range (AL series)

Alephium's Blake3 pays about $0.195 per Th/s per day on our earnings model.

Both need power around 3.4 cents. The AL2 Lite is the more interesting machine on paper — 500 W, domestic socket, low noise — but at $1,444 for 2 Th/s you are paying $722 per terahash against $120 on the AL3, a six-fold premium for the convenience of small.

The deeper issue with Alephium is liquidity rather than hardware: ALPH trades thin enough that selling meaningful quantities moves the price, which is a risk the calculator does not show. Our Alephium mining guide is direct about it, and about how ALPH compares to Kaspa on the same money.

The Aleo range (AE series)

Aleo is the speculative end of the range and we will not pretend otherwise. It is not a hashing competition but a zkSNARK proving market, where rewards depend on proving demand rather than a fixed block schedule, so a stable per-unit rate of the kind we quote for Kaspa and Alephium does not meaningfully exist. Earnings have been volatile since launch.

The AE1 Lite at $558–570 and 500 W is the sane way to take a position: small, quiet, domestic-socket, and a loss you can absorb if proving rewards do not develop. The AE3 at $4,669 is a conviction bet on Aleo specifically, and should only be made by someone who has formed a view on that network rather than on mining generally.

The XP series — the outlier worth knowing about

The IceRiver XP0 is the most unusual machine IceRiver makes: 150 Gh/s from 60 watts, mining Xphere, at $706.

Sixty watts is the number. That is less than a games console at idle, silent in practice, and it runs off any socket in any room in any country without a single electrical or noise consideration. For anyone who has read our apartment mining guide and concluded that mining at home is closed to them, the XP0 is the one category of machine that sidesteps every constraint in it.

The trade is the coin. Xphere is small and early, and the honest framing is the same as Aleo's: this is a cheap, low-risk position on a young network, not a yield product. At 60 W the downside is genuinely capped — a couple of dollars of electricity a month.

How to choose across the whole range

If your power is under 3 cents — industrial contract or cheap hosting — the KS5M at $459 is the best value per terahash in the range by a distance, and the AL3 is defensible if you want Alephium exposure. Below that threshold the cheap old models stop being traps and start being the highest-return items here.

If your power is 5 to 9 cents, the KS7 and KS7 Lite are the only IceRiver machines that come close, and you should also read the Kaspa price guide before committing, because Bitmain currently has the efficiency lead on that algorithm.

If you are at domestic rates, nothing in this range profits and the honest options are the two low-power units — the XP0 at 60 W or the KS7 Lite at 500 W — bought as small positions rather than income. Everything else needs hosted power to make sense, and our home versus hosted comparison quantifies the gap.

If noise or space is your constraint, IceRiver serves that better than most manufacturers: the XP0 at 60 W, the KS7 Lite, AL2 Lite and AE1 Lite all at 500 W. That is four genuinely domestic machines across three algorithms, which no other brand matches.

Whatever you are weighing, put your own electricity rate into the profitability model — every figure here is computed at 8 cents, and the conclusions invert below 4.

Kaspa network data and the $0.1985/Th/s/day rate from Minerstat, September 2026 (345.8 Ph/s network, KAS ~$0.04). Alephium rate from the Bull Miners earnings model. Aleo and Xphere reward mechanisms do not support a stable per-unit rate and no figure is quoted. Prices are our listed prices and change; specifications are manufacturer figures. Break-even is gross revenue divided by daily consumption and excludes pool fees and downtime. Mining income is never guaranteed and moves with coin price and network difficulty.