Category: Mining

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Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law Mining Regulation

Texas Senate To Approve Bill #4474, Amid Bitcoin Mining Rush

A live broadcast was scheduled for 12 May for the discussion of H.B. No. 4474 to take place. This bill aims to get cryptocurrency recognised under commercial law, to enable superior blockchain innovation and virtual currency regulation in Texas.

Clearing Up Regulatory Uncertainty

The bill is intended to clarify a few key definitions and concepts of virtual currency:

  • The definition of “virtual currency”
  • Control of a virtual currency
  • Rights of purchaser that obtains control of a virtual currency

Representative Tan Parker first introduced the bill in March, and the bill will now go to the Texan Senate to see if there are any proposed amendments, thereafter a final vote. Should the crypto legislation pass the senate, Texas Governor Greg Abbott can sign the bill into law.

The self-proclaimed crypto supporter seems to also stand behind Bitcoin mining initiatives in Texas.

The importance of clarifying cryptocurrency laws and adding to legislation is paramount if a country wishes to house new and upcomming blockchain initiatives. With this move, Texas would be inviting companies to open up shop by reducing regulatory uncertainty.

Texas is already home to crypto mining firms BlockCap and Riot Blockchain. Both companies are also planning to expand their mining ventures in the state with the purchase of new facilities and equipment in the future. Texas is moving toward becoming a crypto-friendly state like Wyoming.

Texan Power Problems

Texas needs to sort out more than just its regulatory framework to become a crypto friendly state. If they want to increase the amount of Bitcoin mining initiatives they will also need to sort out issues with the power grid. Harsh winters in Texas usually have major repercussions for those on the grid.

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Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Mining

Dust Off The Old Commodore 64 – You Can Now Mine Bitcoin With It

Following last week’s experiment that allowed tech YouTuber Stacksmashing to mine Bitcoin off of a Game Boy, yet another fun project that repurposes old recreational computing device for contemporary purposes has surfaced.

Maciej Witkowiak – a data scientist and old-school retro gaming enthusiast – has repurposed a Commodore 64 to mine Bitcoin.

Pushing the Boundaries of Old Systems

The Commodore 64 was a home computer and not a portable console like the Game Boy, its main purpose was also recreational. Named after its 64 KB of RAM, the PC holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling desktop PC of all time.

Although the mining speed is likely too slow to actually net any profit, it’s still a very interesting project that will surely catch the eye of many nostalgic fans of the system. Its code is readily available on Github, in case you want to try it out – at 0.2 hashes per second, you may very well find your first block within… 337 years and 10 months.

According to Witkowiak, hash functions are hampered by the inefficiency with which the ancient PC handles 32-bit computations, which are crucial for hash functions.

The 6502 CPU in C64 runs at about 1MHz and it doesn’t handle 32-bit computations very efficiently.
Just enjoy the experience.

C64 Bitcoin miner [GitHub]
https://twitter.com/AbkarinoMHM/status/1381462087583461376

Is this a joke?
No, It really does the same thing that every other miner does […]

C64 Bitcoin miner [GitHub]

Although the chance of this mining method getting you any Bitcoin within your life is statistically insignificant, the nostalgia associated with these old systems isn’t.

So if you’ve got one collecting dust in your garage, now you can fire it up!

Categories
Crypto News Mining Qtum

What to Expect From the Qtum Hard Fork 30 April

QTUM hard fork allows for faster block creation and the addition of a multi-threaded optimised staker (which reduces the usage of computer resources) is available for immediate use with the v0.20.2 update.

QTUM founder Patrick Dai announced on Twitter the release of Fast Lane v0.20.2. According to the tweet, it is estimated that the hard fork will take place on April 30.

Faster Block Creation

As detailed on QTUM blog and discussed in an interview, Jordan Earls (Co-Founder QTUM) stated that the hard fork “decreases our block time to 32 seconds, which means that on average every 32 seconds, a new block of transactions is appended to the blockchain. Instead of 128 seconds (about 2 minutes) as we had in the past.”

Qtum blog

As seen by the increase of the network weight, the new staker is more efficient. If block are created more regularly, miners receive Qtum more regularly, resulting in faster validation of transactions and block creation.

The upgraded staker will benefit all stakers with reduced CPU utilization and multiple threads and will be especially beneficial for stakers with large (> 5,000) UTXO sets.

Qtum

Comparing the performance of v0.20.1 with the new staker in v0.20.2 on a Raspberry Pi 3B (4 core 1.2 GHz CPU with 1 GB RAM and swap file) on the testnet staking 10,000 UTXOs. As seen in the image below v0.20.1 runs Qtum-Qt with a steady 100% CPU utilization whereas v0.20.2 runs at only a few % CPU utilization. Showing that the update reduces computer resource usage for assisting in the Proof-of Stake consensus.

Qtum blog

We believe proof of stake is the morally right thing to do instead of burning tons of electricity to throw it away on cryptographic hashes meeting some condition, and our algorithm is unique in that anyone can stake […].

Jordan Earls, Co-Founder QTUM

What about current native Qtum tokens?

QTUM is used both as a currency due to our UTXO compatibility and fuel to our smart contract ecosystem. Analogous to ETH in Ethereum, QTUM is used to fuel the smart contract that builds out our DeFi money legos, among other things.

Jordan Earls, Co-Founder QTUM

This is a hard fork to upgrade features on the blockchain, and no new coin will be created. The upgrade for the hard fork only applies to the Qtum Core wallets Qtum-Qt and qtumd, no other wallets.

Jackson Belove on Qtum blog

An Exciting Year for Qtum

Qtum is also looking towards the DeFi and DApp space in the future. The project is in a unique position where they can combine the security aspects of the Bitcoin Protocol and Ethereum smart contracts so that they can enable products like NFTs, exchanges, and DeFi functionality.

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Crypto News Digital Asset Mining Mining

Norwegian Billionaire Invests in Energy-Saving Crypto Supercomputer Mining Startup

Billionaire hedge fund manager Ole Andreas Halvorsen, currently Norway’s fourth richest man, has invested in Harmonychain. The company is currently developing application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining chips that are allegedly 300% – 500% more energy efficient than existing chips.

Norwegian Investors Show Interest In Crypto

A report from local broadcaster, Trijo News, shows that when Harmonychain announced they would be listing on Oslo Stock Exchange’s OTC list (a marketplace for unlisted shares). It was followed by announcements that Halvorsen (currently 11th top-earning hedge fund manager in the world), former cross-country skiing star Bjørn Dæhlie, and stock trader and supercar collector Arne Fredly have invested in the crypto company.

Since Bitcoin electricity consumption has been under much scrutiny, there seems to be a call for more sustainable methods to keep blockchain technology running. And we’ve seen Ethereum move towards being 99% more eco-friendly with the introduction of PoS.

Harmonychain’s ASIC Miner to Launch Late 2022

The Harmonychain website states that:

Currently, Crypto mining consumes a lot of energy. Our microchips are designed to be up to 300%-500% more efficient than current chips, reducing computer energy use by 70-80%, all other things equal.

The startup believes that their “Crypto Supercomputer miner” will be the most profitable mining hardware upon its release in 2022 and 2023.

Hardware specs of the Supercomputer Chip

The company is going to offer two Supercomputer chips, one tailored toward Bitcoin and the other toward Litecoin both aim to reduce energy costs of mining among other things. The Litecoin chip is Scrypt, meaning that it is dedicated to mining the digital asset Litecoin (LTC) and other Scrypt-based coins. The other focuses only on processes associated with Bitcoin.

According to industry standard, customers can expect to prepay approx. 9-12 months prior to delivery. The Supercomputer is poised to be the most profitable Crypto hardware on the market. Our Crypto Supercomputer miners have an estimated payback of less than 2 years.

With another competitor soon to be part of the blockchain specific semiconductor market, the mining industry it seems is set for a boom in research and development. And some see Halvorsen joining the fray as positive news for the crypto sphere.

Categories
Crypto News Digital Asset Mining Mining

AMD In The Race for Crypto GPU Market Share

With the current bull-run in the crypto market there has been a large increase in crypto mining activities. And as it stands AMD wants to get into the crypto mining market with a GPU specifically made for mining Ethereum.

AMD’s old, new GPU

The AMD Navi 10 & 12, originally only made for Apple Macbook Pro could become the company’s first mining-specific GPU. The card has no video outputs and doesn’t support VCN (Video Core Next) which is needed for gaming. AMD also plans to introduce new architecture and repurpose these cards to combat Nvidia’s similar market offering in an attempt to gain a share of the crypto mining market.

CPU Radiating AMD – pixabay

Nvidia Takes the Side of Gamers

Recently Nvidia announced that they will be adding limiters to their gaming specific GPUs like the RTX 3060 and new RTX 3080Ti. These irremovable limiters activate when specific parts of the Ethereum mining algorithm are detected, then reduces the hash rate by 50%, making it wildly inefficient to mine with them. This move is mainly aimed at Ethereum miners, which means miners could still use them for other coins without worrying about the limiters.

Last week we announced a new line of NVIDIA CMPs or cryptomining processors. Shipments will start in March.

Nvidia on PC Gamer

Due to the demand for graphics cards globally (not just for mining) there is a shortage in supply, which in turn is pushing up prices. This is one of the reasons Nvidia and AMD have decided to sell dedicated mining GPUs.

(Source: CuttingEdgeGamer)

Since the pandemic began there has been a surge of people playing games, with hours played on Steam increasing by 50%, this means there are a few new gamers out there who needed GPUs.

Bitcoin mining rig manufacturers have seen a massive surge in demand since the price of the leading crypto asset skyrocketed. Companies such as Canaan Creative have placed significantly sized mining rig orders while other companies like Bitmain are completely sold out.

Global Times

An important thing to remember is that with the coming Ethereum hard fork the network is beginning its migration over to PoS, and should be completed by 2022. This means that miners will need to move to Bitcoin or any other PoW powered coin in order to mine for profits.

A person would be very foolish to invest in a high-end, power consuming GPU for crypto mining today.

TechRadar
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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum Mining

Ethereum 2.0 is Greener and Better For the Environment

Crypto mining is an environmentally costly process with Bitcoin mining alone using more power than the entire country of Argentina. Using blockchain technology may be revolutionary, but at what cost?

Ethereum moved from mining to staking and it’s 99% greener!

Ethereum moves from PoW to PoS

PoS (Proof-of-Stake) was developed as an energy-saving alternative to PoW (Proof-of-Work). PoS using electricity to process blockchain transactions whereas PoW uses staking of ETH instead with minimal electricity required.

Ethereum moved to PoS at the end of 2020 as part of its Eth 2.0 Ecosystem update. And according to some Ethereum proponents this change could make mining of Ethereum significantly more sustainable, some even argue 99% more sustainable.

Ethereum’s eth2 upgrade – an overhaul of Ethereum’s core consensus to provide a more sustainable, secure, and scalable home for Ethereum and its community. […] to move from the energy-hungry, inefficient proof-of-work to a more sustainable, scalable proof-of-stake.

The State of Eth2 – ethereum.org

As it stands, there are currently approximately 414 PoW cryptocurrencies and 324 PoS cryptocurrencies in existence. Could we see more make the switch?

Bitcoin’s Proof of Work Is Bad For the Environment

The main issue with PoW is that it is extremely resource-intensive, and lots of energy is required to run the protocol. In addition, as many more people are joining the mining process, the difficulty increases in order to keep the mining time the same.

The mining done for Bitcoin has risen its annual carbon footprint equalling that of Argentina. Issues like these raise an environmental concern to such a magnitude that a major Bitcoin mining hub in Mongolia has been shut down recently due to massive power consumption.

Computer in the woods! flickr.com

The environmental impact of miners might make Bitcoin and other PoW protocols unattractive to environmentally conscious investors. Since the world is slowly on its way to going green, blockchain companies should consider the impact that they have on the environment.

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Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Mining

Texas Turns to Bitcoin Mining – Goodbye Aluminum, Hello Cryptocurrency

There have been various crypto initiatives that started in Texas since 2017, and it seems that crypto-centered businesses are choosing this state as their home base.

In the meantime four mining facilities have been established in Texas, one of the instances was a small town called Rockdale which suffered massive economic losses due to the closure of the Alcoa Aluminum mine. A Bitcoin mining farm (Bitmain) then established itself in the town and aided the community by sourcing materials locally, job creation, and playing a role in the community.

Rockdale native and Bitmain project manager Clint Brown inside the former aluminum plant.

The Texas Bitcoin Rush

Northern Data Ag also building a 100-acre mining farm, as well as Layer 1 a mining startup, and the most recent by Argo Blockchain which will be running on the majority of renewable energy.

Klondike Gold Rush photo courtesy of PBS

Northern Data’s world leading Texas HPC data center is being constructed and expanded on an area of ​​more than 100 acres, which corresponds to the size of around 57 soccer fields.

Northern Data AG announces new 100 MW US customer

What Makes Texas so Attractive for Miners?

Texas has some of the lowest energy rates in the US which makes mining more affordable, and with a substantial portion of energy coming from wind turbines and natural gas so it’s more sustainable than states that rely mostly on fossil fuels. Yet due to the deregulated nature of the energy sector Texas does experience outages.

Yet the main reason for the influx could be due to Texas aiming to become the most favored state for blockchain innovation and investment in the US. A non-profit association of blockchain companies, Texas Blockchain Council, is working with legislators to promote blockchain initiatives, legislation, and in 2019 legislators passed two bills outlining the ability of local businesses to implement blockchain technology in bookkeeping and communications.

Texas has a long history of technological innovation and free-thinking entrepreneurs. We’ve now set our sights on becoming the jurisdiction of choice for investors, entrepreneurs, and enterprises to build and deploy blockchain technology applications and other emerging tech innovations.

Texas State Representative, Tan Parker

Even the availability of crypto ATMs in Austin and San Antonio where individuals can buy major cryptocurrencies shows the drive for crypto adoption.

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Market Analysis Mining

On-Chain Data Suggests Bitcoin Miners Have Finally Stopped Selling Bitcoin

On-chain data suggests that Bitcoin miners have finally stopped selling their accumulated supplies of BTC. The recent dip in Bitcoin price was linked to miners selling their Bitcoin as China closes its mining operations.

The sell off may finally be over, as you can see from the graph below, the red indicates that the miners are now creating daily negative positions in terms of the BTC held in the miners blockchain addresses. And you can clearly see the rate of sales is declining.

Bitcoin Miner Net Position Change by Glassnode

The Miner Position Change metric factors in all balances for all newly minted coins and thus provides us with a big picture view on the full mining landscape.

Despite newly minted coins representing only a fraction of daily trade volume it appears that even miners are returning to neutral or accumulation mode.

The on-chain data suggests a relatively strong bull case for Bitcoin this week.

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining China Mining

Recent BTC Price Dip Linked To China Mining F2Pool Selling Off

China are shutting down some of their mining operations and mining group F2Pool, who have many mining farms in China, are transferring BTC out of their wallets frantically.

China to Ban Mining Operations

As quoted by CNBC, China’s Inner Mongolia region plans to ban crypto mining and shut down existing operations by April 2021 – due to high energy consumption.

If we take a look at the some of F2Pool mining farms locations we can see they are located in the Inner Mongolia region of China – the same place as the ban.

F2Pool Mining Farms in Inner Mongolia

As China start to head towards a cleaner ecosystem, they might ban the rest of the Chinese mining locations, and that accounts for around 65% of all bitcoin mining globally – which could have a short term impact on BTC.

F2Pool BTC Outflow

If we take a look at the data in the charts provided by CryptoQuant we can clearly see the massive outflow of BTC from F2Pool affiliated wallets.

BTC: F2Pool Affiliated Miners Outflow Source

This consistent massive outflow of BTC is not “normal” for a BTC mining pool. If we compare it to the Antpool group which has 11% share of the total BTC pools, it averages around 300 BTC outflow mark every few days. F2Pool which has 18% of the share, you would expect the outflow to be only slightly bigger, but at the moment you can see, its considerably bigger.

F2Pool Affiliated Miners Outflow – zoom in showing 14,000 BTC outflow for Feb 25

That giant outflow on Feb 21 could have sparked the the BTC dip, with futures contracts being liquidated causing a domino effect.

F2Pool Affiliated Miners Outflow – zoom in showing hourly outflow vs BTC price drop

It will be interesting to see if F2Pool release something official about closing operations in China. Stay tuned for more news.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies Ethereum Mining

Nvidia Limits Mining Efficiency On RTX 3060

Nvidia has announced that they will be reducing the efficiency of Ethereum mining on its RTX 3060 series by 50%, in an effort to ease the shortage of graphics cards caused by crypto miners.

For over 2 years, graphics cards – usually snapped up by avid gamers – have seen numerous shortages, causing their prices to skyrocket on secondary markets. Between scalpers and miners, the market is tense – a move that has caused Nvidia to step in, hoping to restore high-end GPUs to their intended purpose.

However, in order to not leave crypto miners orders unfulfilled, Nvidia is also launching a GPU dedicated specifically for miners – the CMP .

Focused Due To Highest Yield Potential

To explain why they have specifically lowered the hash rate on the 3060 series, Nvidia stated that Ethereum has the highest global mining yield of any other cryptocurrency at the moment.

“It has the highest global mining yield for any GPU-mineable coin at the moment and thus is likely the main demand driver for GPUs in mining.”

By making Ethereum mining less efficient, Nvidia hopes it can deter miners from focusing on gaming GPUs and drive them towards their new dedicated CMP cards.

According to Nvidia, the CMP will remove focus from the graphics a high-end gaming card would be able to render and turn that power towards more energy-efficient mining processes.

However, critics have met this claim with a measure of skepticism – stating that more efficient mining hardware will do nothing to stop the card arms race – since miners with these cards will simply be competing against other miners with the same cards now, not against miners with regular graphics cards.

It’s worth noting that the current shortages have not only made the prices of GPUs skyrocket, but that of mining rigs as well, with some companies having their inventory sold out for the foreseeable future.