Global Crypto Mining News (Mar 7 to Mar 13)
Colin Wu . 2022-03-14 . Mining

1.

HIVE announced a supply agreement with Intel Corporation (Nasdaq:INTC) (“Intel”) to purchase new high performing ASIC chips that will be incorporated into state-of-the-art mining equipment that will be custom built for HIVE. These miners are expected to begin launch deliveries in the second half of 2022, with a total hashrate of approximately 1.8 EH/s and over 10,000 miners expected. HIVE also are announcing that HIVE has entered into a letter of intent with Compute North LLC (“Compute North”) to host 100 megawatt (“MW”) of mining capacity in one of their new Texas renewable energy data centre facilities.  This facility would be our first mining operation in the United States.

 

2.

Crypto mining company ArgoBlockchain said on its social media platforms that it mined 135 Bitcoin or Bitcoin Equivalent (together, BTC) compared to 172 BTC in January 2022. This reduction of BTC mined during February is primarily due to record high global hashrate and subsequent network difficulty increase. At the end of February, the Company owned 2,685 Bitcoin, of which 246 were BTC equivalents. The Company is also pleased to announce it has signed a supply agreement with Intel Corporation to purchase Intel's new blockchain accelerator. The Company has pro-rata allocation rights to purchase a supply of the Intel units, with delivery anticipated to begin in the second half of 2022.

 

3.

According to TheBlock Research, the total hashrate of actively disclosed bitcoin mining companies in North America currently stands at 43 EH/s, or about 22% of the network-wide hashrate. ​

 

4.

Hashrate Index: prices for all efficiency-rated miners have fallen for six consecutive weeks, and the monthly average price for popular models has been trending lower since November 2021. In January. Prices for mid-range miners (38-68 J/TH) fell 16% over the month, while newer generation machines (below 38 J/TH) dropped 7%. As Bitmain and Intel launch newer, more top-notch machines this year, miners are prioritizing the newest, most efficient equipment, and older machine inventory will be replaced.

 

5.

Core Scientific (CORZ), the largest publicly traded bitcoin (BTC) miner in North America by hashrate, plans to solidify its leading position by reaching a hashrate of 40 EH/s-42 EH/s by the end of this year.

 

The hashrate will be distributed approximately evenly between its self-mining and hosting segments, the company said in a statement on Monday.

 

“We ended 2021 operating data centers in four states with total mining capacity of 13.5 EH/s. Two months later we were operating in five states, with a sixth state in view, and had increased our hashrate to 15.9 EH/s," said CEO Mike Levitt.

 

The company also announced preliminary 2021 revenue of $515 million to $545 million, versus FactSet's consensus analyst estimate for $469.9 million. Preliminary adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation (EBITDA) was $225 million to $235 million, versus the analyst consensus estimate of $205.5 million. The shares of the miner were up 3.6% on Monday.

 

Core Scientific's self-mining operations mined 981 bitcoins in February, producing an average of 35 bitcoins per day, up slightly from January's average of 34.7 per day and up 313% year-over-year. As of February 28, 2022, the company held 7,355 of the bitcoins it mined.(CoinDesk)

 

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6.

Bitcoin miner BitNile (NILE) plans to increase the power capacity of its Michigan data center to 300 MW and has signed a purchase agreement with BitMain Technologies for more than 18,000 mining units, with deliveries set to begin in December and expected to take approximately 18-24 months, expanding the company's hashrate to 12 EH/s.(Businesswire)

 

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7.

Dallas-based bitcoin (BTC) mining startup Blockmetrix announced a $43 million Series B funding round, bringing total funding to $50 million since June 2021.

 

The new monies will allow Blockmetrix to secure more than 5,000 mining rigs to be added to 1,000 miners put to work with last year’s $7 million Series A. This latest round was oversubscribed, said the company, and included investors from the U.S., Australia and several Asian countries.

 

Blockmetrix plans to grow rapidly by using the maximum amount of available capital and debt to buy mining rigs, while controlling power costs through various joint ventures, CEO and co-founder Nevin Bannister said. “Through [joint ventures] we will obtain part-ownership of a co-location facility to ensure low power rates and a place to house our bitcoin miners,” he said.

 

The company’s JV partners will be responsible for the development and operation of the co-location facility, which will help channel the majority of the funding directly towards increasing hashrates rather than building infrastructure, Bannister explained.

 

Blockmetrix is currently negotiating a JV deal that will secure a 100 megawatt (MW) co-location facility in Texas, with expansion potential to 200MW, Bannister said.(CoinDesk)

 

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8.

The latest crypto miner to go public is U.S.-based Bitstream Mining, as its owner, Agora Digital Holdings, plans an initial public offering on the Nasdaq, according to a Wednesday IPO prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

Agora will list under the ticker DEFY, with a pro forma total stockholders' equity of $53 million but has not announced the share price, the prospectus said. Agora booked a $3.3 million loss the nine months ended Dec. 31, 2021, according to the prospectus. The listing and ticker is still pending regulatory approval.

 

Agora has invested $7.2 million to set up operations for Bitstream, including buying 5,000 used Canaan AvalonMiner 841 mining rigs for $1.35 million, according to today's filing. About $2.4 million of that was a payment to a power management firm, including a downpayment to an energy supplier, said a September 2021 SEC filing. The firm has agreed to spend another $6 million to buy energy, order miners, and develop mining infrastructure, the prospectus said.(CoinDesk)

 

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9.

Iran has announced the go-ahead for crypto mining, but only under strict conditions. New licenses will only be issued to mining farms supplied by power from renewable energy sources, according to the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade (MIMT). The ministry says the only way to prevent illegal mining operations is to provide energy from other sources and make those sources legal. There was no mention of what those sources might be. Iran ordered a shutdown of authorized cryptocurrency mining centers last Dec as part of efforts to ease the stress on power plants and avoid blackouts.(Be in Crypto)

 

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10.

IntoTheBlock data shows that, the amount of BTC held by miners has reached a 10-year low of about 1.9 million. The intensification of the downward trend began at the end of November last year, after miners' bitcoin balances held gradually increased during the bull market in the crypto market. On top of that, BTC hashrate has reached near record levels, and these pressures on miners' margins have led miners to sell some of their holdings to cover operating expenses.

 

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11.

The Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela has stated in a recent sentence that the tasks developed by Sunacrip, the national cryptocurrency and bitcoin mining watchdog, have a strategic significance for the country. The sentence, which voids some resolutions taken in a prior sentence where another tribunal ordered Sunacrip to return more than 1,000 miners seized in November to its owners, also declares that bitcoin miners have to comply with certain conditions to develop these activities on Venezuelan soil.(Bitcoin.com)

 

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12.

VanEck’s Digital Assets Mining ETF (DAM) opened for business Wednesday, offering targeted exposure to those companies in the crypto asset mining industry.

 

The exchange-traded fund will invest at least 80% of its total assets in securities of crypto miners that generate or have the potential to earn at least 50% of their revenue from mining activities or related technologies. The fund will track the MVIS Digital Assets Mining Index and will a have net expense ratio of 0.5%.The top holdings of the fund include miners, mining manufacturing companies, aspiring mining manufacturers and a blockchain-focused bank.

The largest weighting is Riot Blockchain (RIOT) at about 11%.(Coindesk)

 

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13.

On March 14 the latest draft of the European Union's (EU) proposed legislative framework governing virtual currencies, the Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA), will be voted on, with the previously contained ban on environmentally unsustainable consensus mechanisms for crypto services starting in January 2025 removed and replaced with "minimum environmental sustainability standards for consensus mechanisms used to validate transactions ". Under the provision, proof-of-work consensus mechanisms are not required to meet sustainability standards if they operate on a small scale.(CoinDesk)

 

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14.

The Fujian Digital China Construction Summit Organizing Committee Innovation Competition released a sub-track of energy big data - virtual currency "mining" behavior identification test, issued by the State Grid Fujian Electric Power Co. The task is to identify and filter out users suspected of virtual currency mining behavior among the sample users based on the data provided by the sample to build a relevant algorithm model; the prize is 160,000 RMB.

 

15.

According to SSE, the Guangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission recently organized the first virtual currency "mining" site remediation operation in Guangzhou, successfully terminating virtual currency mining farms and seizing more than 190 virtual currency "mining" professional mining machines, worth more than 5 million yuan. In addition, on February 26, Jieyang City in the fight against virtual currency "mining" activities, seized 916 "mining machine".

 

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