Bitfarms, a Quebecois company in charge of one of the largest crypto mining operations in North America, will be listed on NASDAQ on June 21. It will also continue to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) as BITF.
The company had been waiting for its DTC eligibility check to be passed but is now cleared to enter the US stock exchange.
More Than 99% Clean Energy
The company, soon to be listed as $BITF, is committed to using green energy – and more than 99% of the power it uses to run its operations comes from hydroelectric energy.
The Chinese crackdown on mining is a tragedy for China, a nuisance for #Bitcoin, and a windfall for North American Bitcoin miners. https://t.co/IaVUbqPCJ9
Argentinian entrepreneur Emiliano Grodzki – founder and CEO of Bitfarms – commented on the news, stating that a NASDAQ listing had been in the company’s sights for a while. Now that it’s finally achieved this goal, he said it was proud to be largest publicly traded eco-friendly mining farm:
This belief has guided us as we worked to build one of the largest Bitcoin mining operations worldwide. When Bitfarms begins trading on the NASDAQ, it will be the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miner in North America using greater than 99% hydroelectric renewable electricity. We are proud to be a leader in the industry in setting the highest standards for ourselves and our mining operations and to be uplisting to one of the most prestigious stock exchanges in the world. Having reached this milestone we are even more excited about where it will take our company next.”
Emiliano Grodzki
The company was founded in 2017 and controls five mining facilities in Quebec. Rated as a “Rising Star” by the TSX in February, Bitfarms apparently mines nearly 1% of all Bitcoin currently in circulation.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is planning to use a state-owned geothermal electric company to facilitate cryptocurrency mining, using geothermal energy from the country’s 20 active volcanoes.
In a recent tweet, Bukele revealed his plan to use the country’s hundreds of megawatts of geothermal energy potential to mine Bitcoin.
Our engineers just informed me that they dug a new well, that will provide approximately 95MW of 100% clean, 0 emissions geothermal energy from our volcanos 🌋
Starting to design a full #Bitcoin mining hub around it.
The country has 644 MW of wasted energy. If harnessed, it would make the small Central American country the biggest Bitcoin mining facility in the hemisphere, while remaining 100 percent clean, according to Bukele.
The IMF Expresses Concerns
Unsurprisingly, regulatory and financial bodies globally shared their concerns about the country embracing and mining Bitcoin. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Bukele’s plan might raise “macroeconomic, financial, and legal issues”. However, the crypto community has embraced the move, echoing the fact that 75 percent of Salvadoreans are unbanked and have no access to traditional financial systems.
Crypto enthusiasts have also pointed out that using geothermal energy could push miners globally to move towards clean production of Bitcoin. Besides, countries like Norway and Iceland are already using hydro-electric and geothermal energy to power their mining rigs.
Other Countries Set to Follow El Salvador’s Example
El Salvador accepting Bitcoin as legal tender has been in the news in the past week – a move that surprised many in the crypto community as it has become the first country to do so. Days later, Wikipedia added Bitcoin as the country’s official currency alongside the Colón and US Dollar.
While powerful nations like China have been causing FUD in the market – in cracking down on BTC trading and mining – smaller countries like Argentina, Panama and Paraguay are now working on plans to adopt cryptocurrencies, following El Salvador’s example.
We could soon see more smaller countries and states, even cities, moving towards crypto mining as an alternative income. A recent example is Rockdale, a small town in Texas that became a mining farm soon after losing its Alcoa aluminum mine in 2019.
In a post on Reddit, a crypto enthusiast tried seven different ways to earn “free” cryptocurrencies and tokens. Let’s see how it went …
1) Earn BAT Token Using Brave Browser
Brave is a great browser for a multitude of reasons, one of which is the possibility to get crypto from ads. Instead of being bombarded with ads that are irrelevant to you, Brave shows you only relevant ads and in return you get some free Basic Attention Tokens (BAT).
2) Use DeFi Search Engine Called Presearch
Presearch is a decentralised search engine which rewards you with PRE tokens when you search. Presearch is similar to Brave, but it pays you around 0.12 of its native tokens per search. This can be repeated up to 30 times a day, most likely to prevent scrapers abusing it – and you can claim your tokens once you’ve gathered 1000 of them. Although this might take a while, it’s also something that doesn’t take much effort.
3) Scrape GEO Data using COIN geominer
Coin is a social geoapp for your mobile phone. And Geomine is one of the main features of the app where “Geomining” is the act of locating and discovering valuable digital items or assets from a real, physical space. Kind of like Pokemon Go but instead of collecting pokemons you’re collecting crypto.
In exchange for in-app XYO tokens, this app will have you either fill out surveys for crypto or walk around the city scraping geodata in exchange for crypto.
I usually go for a walk each day, so I brought it with me and mined all the trails and parks in the area. I’d boot up the app, stick it in my hoodie pocket (can’t lock the screen) and a half-hour walk would drain about half my battery.
Reddit user u/Llama_in_a_tux
4) Mine Crypto on your Phone with Stormgain Express
Besides being a crypto exchange, Stormgain also claims to allow you to mine crypto on your phone. However, apparently the mining is neither demanding, nor does it require an internet connection – which makes one wonder how this “mining” actually works, or if it’s mining at all.
If you know anything (and I mean anything) about bitcoin mining, this has to be a straight up lie. Mining on my phone (and a crappy one at that)? It works even when I turn off my wifi and data? And my phone doesn’t even overheat? I don’t know what’s going on here, but they claim it’s bitcoin mining.
Reddit user u/Llama_in_a_tux
5) Mining Crypto with Pi
Ah yes, that pre-formatted message your old high-school acquaintance sends you that you pretend to be excited about. Pi allows you to “mine crypto” by clicking a button on your phone. Unfortunately, the project has been around for two years and still hasn’t launched – so it’s up to you to decide whether it’s worth bothering with.
6) Filling out Captchas on Cointiply
Cointiply is an app and a website that gives you free BTC or DOGE every hour, as long as you fill out a captcha. Unfortunately, you get almost nothing for your efforts.
At this rate, it will take me 20 months to make a withdrawal. In that time I will have earned approximately US$5, which will then be converted into whatever the price of BTC is at that time.
Reddit user u/Llama_in_a_tux
7) Participating in Crypto Faucets
Crypto faucets have been around since BTC launched – in fact, around the beginning, some BTC faucets were offering one whole BTC to everyone who stopped by, in order to raise awareness. Unfortunately, in spite of heartwarming stories about former 13-year-old gamers finding keys to wallets full of BTC, the amount of crypto paid out by faucets today isn’t really worth your time.
Although nothing is truly free, some things can get pretty close to it – so if you’ve got some time to kill, you may want to try out some of these methods. As always, however, Do Your Own Research (DYOR) – as some of these methods may be hiding the true extent of the data they collect from you.
Square, the digital payment firm, is partnering up with prominent Bitcoin and blockchain technology firm Blockstream to construct an open-source, solar-powered Bitcoin mining facility in the US.
According to an article released by Blockstream, the facility will be built at one of its mining sites. Blockstream will be providing the infrastructure and expertise to manage the project, while Square will be making a US$5 million investment.
Very cool to see @Blockstream and @Square partnering to build a solar-powered bitcoin mining facility.
Why is this mine so special? There are other mines that operate on renewable energy or offset their carbon emissions by buying carbon credits.
The difference is this mine will be open-source and aims to be completely transparent from construction to economics. The facility will be a proof-of-concept for a 100 percent renewable energy Bitcoin mine at scale, with the economics of the build-out – including operational costs and ROI – revealed to the public.
We hope that the open and transparent nature of the project will become a model that other businesses can learn from […] We’re hoping to demonstrate that a renewable mining facility in the real world is not only possible but also empirically prove that Bitcoin accelerates the world toward a sustainable future
Chris Cook, Chief Information Officer and head of mining, Blockstream
Two Birds With One Stone For Square
The new initiative is also part of Square’s pledge to make its Bitcoin activity carbon-neutral by 2030. Under that commitment Square has promised to fund Bitcoin projects that reduce its carbon footprint.
The bonus is that while Square is busy sustainably mining Bitcoin, its researchers will be able to document the process as a case study for future use. “We’re thrilled to partner with Blockstream to provide an open-source working model for our combined thesis that Bitcoin can further accelerate the renewable energy transition,” said Neil Jorgensen, Global ESG Lead at Square, Inc.
The project will serve as an ongoing, transparent case study that will allow us to all learn together the specific unit economics of clean-energy Bitcoin mining. We can’t wait to start sharing our results with the community.
Neil Jorgensen, Global ESG Lead at Square
Together, we'll be creating a public-facing dashboard to serve as a transparent case study for renewable energy and bitcoin mining. As we continue to explore the synergies between the two, we're excited to share our ongoing learnings and real world data points. (2/2)
The Bitcoin protocol has experienced a reduction in mining difficulty due to China’s crackdown on bitcoin mining and the cascade that followed.
On-chain data shows the network’s mining difficulty adjusted to 21.64 trillion, the lowest it’s been since mid-March, which represents a 16% drop. The latest all-time high (ATH) was 25.04 trillion in May, which was the strongest move upwards since October 2017.
May recorded an ATH in BTC mining difficulty
On May 21, China’s State Council published a document wherein it stipulates it will be “cracking down on bitcoin mining and trading activities” in order to “prevent possible financial risks”.
In the hours following the announcement, the exchange tokens of Huobi, OKEx and Binance, which are mainly China-based crypto trading exchanges, fell by 17%, 19% and 10%, respectively. During this time the Huobi Mining Pool hashrate also took a steep 29% slide.
What Affects The Hashrate
In the same week as the State Council’s announcement, bitcoin miners in Sichuan faced a cap due to increased public power usage. In order to free up electricity for the public, the Sichuan government allows businesses to use the excess hydro-power generated, making it appealing to miners.
At a meeting scheduled this week in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan, regulators will discuss the effects of bitcoin mining on the province’s hydro-electricity excess.
2. Inner Mongolia's energy consumption reduction is not up to beijing's standard, so it is the most active to crack down mining 3. Mining is of no use to the real economy, and even seizes the production capacity of other chips
Due to regulatory uncertainty, Chinese miners are looking to pack up and ship out or at the very least sell their mining rigs. The silver lining is that if China were to ban crypto, it would no longer hold the majority of nodes securing the network.
3, In past 48 hours, Chinese miners already started to accelerate migrating process to other countries. There will also be large quantities of Bitcoin mining machines available for sales.
Hash power represents the combined computational power required to mine and process transactions on the blockchain. Higher hashrate means more resources are being devoted to process transactions, making a network more resilient to attacks.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is designed to adjust itself every 2,016 blocks based on average block production intervals throughout the period. There are also scheduled difficulty changes in order to keep block creation at around one block every 10 minutes. The more difficult it is to mine, the more hashes will need to be generated to find the block rewards, pushing the total hashrate higher.
English police stumbled upon a Bitcoin mining operation when their drone detected a considerable amount of heat emanating from a warehouse in the West Midlands on May 18.
Suspecting a cannabis farm, the police were able to seize around 100 Bitcoin mining devices which were running on stolen electricity.
Mining operation found by the Police in Sandwell, UK
Detectives said they were tipped off about lots of people visiting the unit throughout the day and a police drone picked up a lot of heat coming from the building.
It’s certainly not what we were expecting. It had all the hallmarks of a cannabis cultivation set-up.
Sandwell Police Sergeant Jennifer Griffin
The computer equipment has been seized but no arrests have been made.
Bitcoin mining equipment in question
Bitcoin Mining Is Not Illegal But Stealing Electricity Is
The police said although it wasn’t illegal to mine Bitcoin, the issue was that the electricity was syphoned from the power grid, hence illegal.
Mining for cryptocurrency is not itself illegal but clearly abstracting electricity from the mains supply to power it is. […] It is just the second illegal mining operation the local force have discovered in the region.
Michael Saylor, CEO of business intelligence company MicroStrategy, has stepped up his support for Bitcoin.
In a recent tweet, Saylor informed that he hosted a meeting between Bitcoin (BTC) miners in North America and the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, on ways to promote Bitcoin sustainability and energy transparency.
Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between @elonmusk & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide. https://t.co/EHgLZ9zvDK
The meeting led to the formation of the “Bitcoin Mining Council”, which aims at promoting the use of renewable energy for Bitcoin mining. The meeting included executives from major mining companies like Riot Blockchain, Hut8Mining, Marathon, Galaxy Digital, Argo Blockchain, and many others.
The council will basically work to standardise energy reporting, pursue industry ESG goals, and educate/grow the Bitcoin marketplace.
Judging by global Bitcoin mining hashrate stats, the number of miners in North America is no match to those in China. However, many people believe that the formation of the council is a big step towards driving Bitcoin to cleaner energy.
Will Tesla Restart Accepting Bitcoin Payments?
The quest and criticism on the source of Bitcoin energy became mainstream debate after Elon Musk announced that his electric car company would no longer accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for their products over environmental concerns. The announcement caused quite a notable drop in the price of Bitcoin (BTC), possibly leading into the recent massive correction.
Will the movement towards a “greener Bitcoin” prompt Tesla to reopen the possibility for customers to pay in BTC? Only time will tell, meanwhile Elon commented on the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council, saying “potentially promising”.
Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.
It seems like history is repeating itself once again as the Chinese authorities have reiterated plans to crack down on Bitcoin trading and mining activities in the country.
Breaking: The State Council of China: Crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading, and prevent individual risks transmitted to the social field.
Upon the news, the price of Bitcoin dropped by 10 percent below $40,000 USD late on Friday and is still on the decline as we reported in the reasons why Bitcoin crashed.
This isn’t the first time China has caused FUD with Bitcoin, they did almost exactly the same thing back in 2013 causing the Bitcoin price to drop from $1k to $400. China then did the same thing again in 2018 causing the Bitcoin price to drop from $20k to $6k.
China FUD since 2017
China Ban Bitcoin Mining Operations
Following the report shared by the Chinese journalist, the State Council of China, and Vice Premier Liu, He is looking to step up regulatory measures to protect the financial systems while also preventing individual financial risks. This was discussed in their 51st meeting of the “State Council Financial Stability and Development Committee” of May 21.
This is the first time that the highest level of the Chinese government has clearly proposed a blow to the mining industry.
Crypto reporter, Colin Wu
As part of the measures, the State Council intensified their call to crackdown Bitcoin trading and mining in the country and “and resolutely prevent the transmission of individual risks to the social field.”
The impact of this incident is still uncertain, but it is possible that all public mining activities in China will be banned, and exchanges may face severe blows.
China houses the majority of Bitcoin’s global hashrate. Over 65 percent of Bitcoin mining activities are observed in the country, and so, some people are curious about how the Chinese ban on BTC mining will affect the overall network health.
Monthly share of global Bitcoin hashrate. Source: CBECI
On the other hand, some believe the development will propel more Bitcoin mining activities in the United States with clean energy.
What ppl don’t understand is that ppl who care about Bitcoin and the planet _want_ China to ban bitcoin mining. Eliminates (outside) risk factor, decarbonizes BTC, decentralizes HR, ++ margins for clean US based miners.
Following Tesla’s suspension of Bitcoin payments due to energy implications, there have been many responses from the industry showing that the network can be operated in a more sustainable way.
After pinning the suspension of Bitcoin payments to its excessive power consumption in a tweet, the announcement sparked a Bitcoin (BTC) sell-off that dropped close to 13% of its value in 24 hours.
This could raise questions affecting the image of cryptos in the public eye, so various players in the industry have come forward to show that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies can be more environmentally friendly. For starters, the energy required to mine does not necessarily come from non-renewable sources. There are also other cryptocurrencies that use less electricity than Bitcoin (even at scale), thanks to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) or other consensus algorithms needing less computational power to function.
Green Changes Submitted To Enhance Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work Algorithm
Michael Dubrovsky, co-founder of Siphox and Powx, revealed that the nonprofit Powx has drafted a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) that aims to produce a “durable, low energy” Bitcoin Proof-of-Work (PoW) system.
We (at https://t.co/lpduPaC5FI) have had a draft of a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal—Durable, Low Energy Bitcoin PoW—for a while now. Looks like the energy issue is finally getting some attention. Bitcoin can be made compatible w low-energy optical compute https://t.co/1p4afK4eMYpic.twitter.com/f8SUM5aJip
The paper details how the algorithm, dubbed “Optical Proof-of-Work (OPOW)”, could greatly reduce energy dependency by leveraging photonics.
Accelerating development of low-energy computing can be hardly called a waste. This technology has potential to drastically reduce data centers energy use in the future.
There are changes that can be implemented to the Bitcoin protocol to make it less energy-hungry however, due to its decentralised nature, upgrading it can be a lengthy process.
Bitcoin Mine in New York Going Carbon Neutral
Greenidge Generation, a New York-based bitcoin mining operation, has announced that they will be carbon neutral by the start of June following the media storm that concerned many people about the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining.
— Greenidge Generation (@GreenidgeLLC) May 14, 2021
Greenidge’s real estate is 150 acres in size and has an on-site and a power plant capable of generating over 100MW of clean energy an hour. The plant uses natural gas to generate electricity running at high levels of thermodynamic efficiency, thus lowering the cost of producing power.
The Greenridge Natural Gas Power Station [Twitter]
We are demonstrating we can provide the same critical transaction verification and processing services to secure the bitcoin network while maintaining a fully carbon neutral footprint. We call on others to join us in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions now.
Jeffrey Kirt, CEO of Greenidge Generation Holdings [source]
For many years, cryptocurrency mining has only been reserved to a select few – those people with enough time and capital willing to invest resources into setting up their own mining rigs. However, cloud mining has been quickly gaining speed, and StormGain’s solution removes the technical barriers from the equation in hopes of creating a more even playing field.
Since miners need to keep several factors in mind, including electricity costs, upkeep and maintenance, and the overall investment return, mining has become less lucrative for the smaller players. StormGain wants to change this narrative, and give everyone the chance to participate in the verification of cryptocurrency transactions, earning a nice income whilst doing so.
Cloud mining is a prevalent trend in the cryptocurrency industry today. However, many providers claim to offer significant yields and fail to deliver on those promises. StormGain is a different breed, as it provides a mobile-based cloud mining solution. Every user can mine cryptocurrency directly from their mobile phone without dealing with the hardware side of things. Mobile app users connect directly to remote cloud servers, allowing StormGain to provide a risk-free and convenient mining solution, incomparable to those offered by other cloud mining service providers.
The first step is to register at StormGain platform using smartphone – or desktop computer for those who prefer that option. StormGain purposely opts for a pain-free registration process to get as many people acquainted with cloud mining as possible. The registration process also involves a lucrative bonus of $5 USDT, delivered directly to users’ mining accounts. The process is simple – upon registering, use the promo code MINER to receive the bonus. After confirming the account, users can begin mining Bitcoin right away by connecting to the cloud mining server, with no impact whatsoever on the smartphone’s performance.
After meeting the minimal $10 USDT profit threshold, users are free to trade and exchange their crypto assets with StormGain. Withdrawal of mined currency is not possible without going through the trading process first, but all profit generated via trading can be transferred out of one’s account at any given time – a fair trade-off.
The trading and exchanging via StormGain is available at 0% commission, with users benefiting from all standard and advanced instruments at their disposal. The service also introduces fiat-based cryptocurrency purchasing for those who want to expand their crypto portfolio quickly and effortlessly.
StromGain has contracted incredible partnerships since its inception, making it the 1# interest rate provider for crypto traders by CoinMarketCap, a member of the well-known Blockchain Association within the Financial Commission, but also a S.S. Lazio official trading partner, and the market’s best cryptocurrency trading & exchange platform, according to The European. To date, StormGain’s trading product notes a 30-day volume of over $6 billion, generated by tens of thousands of traders worldwide.
What sets StormGain apart from other cloud mining providers is how mining rewards are proportional to trading volume. Users with a higher trading volume will earn a higher daily mining income. Mining with StormGain over more extended periods can have a significant impact on one’s profit potential, showcasing huge capital inflows for the most active miners and traders.
Cloud mining rewards are distributed every 30-40 minutes. Then, users are free to withdraw the funds to their trading accounts, within less than 72 hours. For newcomers, the first mined Bitcoin rewards will become accessible within 4 hours, a feat that is available nowhere else within the cloud mining industry.
About StormGain
As part of its services, StormGain’s cloud mining service effectively removes all entry barriers to the mining market. Consequently, there’s no longer a need to invest in expensive mining chips that take up space, make noise, and consume electricity. Contract prices are inherently small so on-going investments can translate to significant profits over the long term. Since the bitcoin mining service is readily available via the cloud, accessing it via desktop and mobile devices couldn’t be easier, with no hardware and time investments involved.
