Most home miners are designed in one country, assembled in another and branded in a third. The GekkoScience K series is different: the company that designs the boards also builds the cases, in the United States. This is the story behind the KBOX, KBeast and KBuddy, and an honest look at what "built in America" does and does not cover.
Who GekkoScience is
GekkoScience is a small Missouri company run by an engineer the community knows as Sidehack. He has been in Bitcoin hardware since 2013, first overclocking USB miners and selling the kits, then designing his own boards from 2015. It is a family operation, and he says so himself.
We're kind of a family company. Literally, my mom runs the factory.
Sidehack, on the Scott Offord channel
GekkoScience does not order finished enclosures from a catalogue. They cut and fold the case metal themselves, which is why the host of The Bitcoin Mining Show landed on the line that stuck.
You're not assemblers, you're builders. You actually build things.
Altair Technology, interviewing Sidehack and Iris
Sidehack's answer was matter of fact: "we've even cutting our own metal, cutting and folding metal in house for our cases." His business partner Iris put the philosophy plainly: the more you invest in American engineering and American builders, the more it comes back to you. Altair, who sell the unit at shows, describe the build as happening between Florida and Missouri.
What "built in America" honestly means
We want to be precise, because the phrase gets abused. The KBOX, KBeast and KBuddy are designed and built in the USA: their own boards, their own folded metal. Reviewers describe it the same way.
Designed, engineered, and manufactured in the USA.
Red Panda Mining
The ASIC chips are not American. They are Bitmain BM1370s, the same silicon family found in many current home miners. Our own team said it on camera while putting a meter on the KBOX: made in America, assembled in America, with 1370 chips inside. So the honest claim is designed and built in America around imported chips. Not 100 percent American parts, and we will never write that. The BM1370 is also not the newest chip Bitmain has announced. What GekkoScience did with it is the story, and the wall meters below are the evidence.
What a US build actually gets you
Saying built in the US has its perks, and they are concrete. Each one below comes from a review, the founders' own words, or the product page.
- A builder who stands behind the unit. As George put it on camera: "Matt really stands behind the quality of his products." Altair, the reseller, is close enough to the factory that Sidehack says they do not ship, they drive it over.
- Fixes come from the source. The Linux controller and firmware are GekkoScience's own, with over the air updates, advanced cgminer access and a bug report and feature request form built into the web interface. The people who reply to it are the people who designed the board.
- Quality control by the hands that built it. A team of about five, their own folded metal, LEDs soldered on the hashboard instead of a stick on strip. The proof is that three independent wall meters matched the advertised draw within a few watts.
- A warranty backed by a factory you can point to. The product page carries a manufacturer warranty of at least one year worldwide, and the manufacturer is a family factory in Missouri, not a contract plant on another continent.
- Built for a North American wall socket. A Mean Well supply inside rated for 120/240VAC, a standard NEMA cord and no third party brick, with the double fuse and fan stop protection designed around that supply. Red Panda Mining contrasted it with small miners that fail at a USB C power port.
The build quality evidence
Five channels have had the KBOX on a bench, and one took it apart on a livestream. In every review people comment on the weight before they plug it in.
Just holding this thing itself, you can just feel this thing just screams quality.
Red Panda Mining
What is actually in the case, from the product sheet and the teardown:
- A fully enclosed steel and aluminum case. No exposed electronics, no plastic stands. The 7mm hex grid faceplate lets air through and keeps small fingers out. Red Panda Mining called it childproof.
- An integrated Mean Well power supply. 120/240VAC input, an on/off switch, one cord, no brick on the floor.
- Double fuse protection. Independent fuses on the mains supply and on the hashboard DC bus.
- Fan stop cutoff. If either fan stops, hashing stops. A software limit on ASIC temperature and a hardware limit on the main voltage regulator back it up.
- A heatsink that makes up most of the weight. The Hobbyist Miner opened the case and found a thick aluminum block with room under the board for airflow, the PSU on top and the control board at the rear.
They didn't even put an LED strip in here. They actually like went higher quality. The LEDs are on the board itself.
The Hobbyist Miner, livestream teardown
Now the concessions, because a story with no faults is an ad. The rubber feet are stick on pads and the Hobbyist Miner had all four fall off during his stream. The internal cables are short and the unit is not meant to be opened, so treat it as a sealed appliance. The front buttons feel cheaper than the rest of the box. None of that touches the hashboard or the safety design, but you should know it.
Efficiency, measured at the wall three times
The product page says 330W typical at the wall on the High preset. Three independent wall meters all came in under that, and they agree with each other.
- Red Panda Mining: 22 TH/s at 312 to 320W. His own math, 320 divided by 22, gives about 14.5 J/TH, better than the advertised 15.
- The Hobbyist Miner: 316W measured against 322W advertised on High, and 47 dB measured against 47 dB advertised. Within one percent.
- Harlo Labs: 20.6 TH/s at 309W while ramping, settling around 315W at 22 TH/s.
Huge shout out to the Gekko Science team for actually having metrics that match the advertising.
The Hobbyist Miner
One quirk worth knowing. On most miners the low power preset is the efficient one. On the KBOX it is the reverse: High is the most efficient mode and Low costs the most energy per terahash. Red Panda Mining measured all three and said he had never seen it like that before. If your room can take the heat, run it on High. That heat is by design: Sidehack has said the KBOX was the first product where being a space heater was an explicit goal, so they set the wattage around what personal heaters draw.
The family
Three units, one design language: enclosed steel and aluminum, integrated Mean Well supply, the same fuse and fan stop protection, Ethernet plus dual band WiFi, a Linux controller with a web dashboard.
GekkoScience KBOX, 22 TH/s
$800. Up to 22 TH/s on High, 16 on Medium, 10 on Low, about 330W at the wall on High. The one every review above is about. Ships September 30, 2026. See the KBOX.
Who it is for: the owner who wants one finished appliance on a shelf, a real heater in winter, and a unit reviewers have already opened up and measured. Not our cheapest hashrate per dollar; what you pay for is the build.
GekkoScience KBeast, up to 50 TH/s
$1,200, preorder. Up to 50 TH/s from about 800W at the wall, a built in 94 percent efficient Mean Well supply, still on a normal wall socket with no dedicated circuit. Based on the KBOX. Ships December 1, 2026. See the KBeast.
Who it is for: the owner who has outgrown the small units and wants the most GekkoScience hashrate in one box. Twice the KBOX and a room sized heater, so expect High to be the loud preset. No reviewer has metered it yet; we will publish numbers when review units land.
GekkoScience KBuddy, 15 to 18 TH/s
$500, preorder. Around 15 TH/s at 200W stock, up to 18 TH/s at 300W at maximum clock, same enclosed case and safety design, 300W integrated supply. Ships December 1, 2026. See the KBuddy.
Who it is for: the first time buyer or the desk. It is the lowest entry price in the K series and a desk sized heater for an office or under a desk in winter. Like the KBeast it is unreviewed so far, so every measured number in this article is a KBOX number.
A word on odds
The KBOX ships with solo pools preconfigured and lets you split hashrate between solo and a regular pool. Solo mining at 15, 22 or 50 TH/s gives you a real, recurring shot at a block. It does not guarantee one, and the odds on any given day are long. Buy the K series for the build, the heat and the maker behind it. Treat a block as the bonus.
Red Panda Mining ended his review saying he was going to buy two with his own money. After reading what goes into one, you can see why.