The total capacity of crypto mining facilities in Russia has been increasing in the past year, despite the market downturn and sanctions. Depressed prices of mining equipment and stronger interest from domestic customers have been identified as major factors for the trend. The capacity of Russian mining farms has exceeded 500 MW at the end 2022（Bitcoin.com）
2.
As of month end, Core Scientific operated approximately 206,000 ASIC servers for both colocation and self-mining, representing a total of 21.1 EH/s at its data center facilities. The Company powered down its data center operations on several occasions. Curtailments in January totaled 10,061 MW/h.
3.
Cryptominer Pierre Rochard, vice president of research at cryptominer Riot Platforms, tweeted that Ordinal’s Inscriptions are consuming 50% of Bitcoin block space, with block space utilization at 100% and median rates dropping. According to OKLink, the average daily bitcoin block size was about 2MB yesterday, a 3-year high.
4.
Bitcoin miner Hut 8 and U.S. Bitcoin Corporation (USBTC) have announced a merger that will see the two companies become wholly owned subsidiaries of a new company, Hut 8 Corp. Hut 8 CEO said the company would sell some of its mined BTC to fund operations during the transition period.
5.
Kazakhstan has finally approved new legislation for the crypto industry. The President signed the new law “On Digital Assets”, which will come into force on April 1, 2023. Bitcoin mining can only be run through pools approved by authorized institutions and in licensed data processing centers; pools are required to provide information on miners’ income to the government for tax purposes; there is an obligation to sell bitcoins on AIFC-registered exchanges (50% 2024 75% 2025); miners are prohibited from engaging in activities other than mining; and overall expenses for miners are expected to increase.
6.
Canadian bitcoin mining company Bitfarms said it settled all outstanding principal and interest totaling $21 million through an amendment to its loan agreement with BlockFi Lending LLC for a single cash payment of $7.75 million. The remaining debt is secured primarily by Quebec-based miners and will mature on or before February 2024.
7.
The U.S. states of Missouri, Mississippi, Montana and Oklahoma have now introduced cryptocurrency mining protection laws. The bill would allow small-scale bitcoin mining in private residences and allow large-scale mining in areas zoned for industrial use. The proposed law would also prohibit local government agencies from imposing restrictions on mining through zoning or noise ordinances and prohibit utilities from setting discriminatory electricity rates for miners. The bills have drawn opposition from groups concerned about the potential loss of local control over mining facilities, which have often been criticized for producing excessive carbon emissions and noise pollution. On top of that, Colorado and Utah are the only states that currently accept crypto taxation; Wyoming will consider creating a state-sponsored crypto-stabilized coin.
8.
Bitmain DASH’s latest miner, the D9, will launch on February 13 at $8,500 USD each; performance is 1770G, 2839W, 1.60J/G. Bitmain has recently launched several new cottage coin miners.
9.
Bitcoin saw a mining difficulty adjustment at block height 776,160, with a small 0.49% decrease to 39.16 T. The average hashrate across the network is now 280.26 EH/s.（BTC.com）
10.
Bitcoin miner Cathedra Bitcoin Inc. provides the following update on its diversified bitcoin mining operations：On February 3, 2023, the Company entered into a hosting agreement under which it will deploy the last of its new machines, consisting of 490 Bitmain Antminer S19J Pro and 50 Bitmain Antminer S19 XP machines, at a third-party data center in Kentucky. Under the terms of the hosting agreement, which lasts for an initial term of 12 months, the Company will pay a fixed rate of US$0.07 per kilowatt hour, plus 10% of gross bitcoin revenue produced by the hosted machines. The Company expects the machines to be deployed by mid-February 2023.
Upon deployment of these machines at the Kentucky site and the 773 S19J Pro machines the Company previously announced it will be deploying at its new leased facility in Washington, the Company expects its diversified bitcoin mining operations to realize active hash rate of at least 378 PH/s, an approximately 53% increase from its current active hash rate of 247 PH/s, at a blended average efficiency of 29.7 J/TH。（Business Wire）
11.
A new crypto mining facility is being built in the Arctic Development Corporation (KRDV) with support from a government-affiliated company. Construction of the infrastructure for the large-scale project is already underway, carried out by a subsidiary of Russia’s largest mining operator, Bitriver. The new enterprise will create about 100 jobs, the company said.
The price tag of the project is about 900 million rubles (over $12.3 million), the business news portal RBC reported, quoting a press release. The launch of the facility, which will host 30,000 mining machines, is scheduled for the first half of 2023.（Bitcoin.com）
12.
Ault Alliance, Inc. ,a diversified holding company, announced that its subsidiary, BitNile, Inc. is currently moving Bitcoin mining equipment out of the Wolf Hollow hosting facility in Texas as a result of the September 2022 Compute North bankruptcy filing.
BitNile, Inc. entered into a hosting agreement securing 20 megawatts of power announced on August 16, 2022 with Compute North, LLC. As a result of this agreement BitNile, Inc. moved 6,572 Bitcoin miners to Compute North’s Wolf Hollow hosting facility in Texas. Compute North’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing initiated a series of events including transfer in ownership of the Wolf Hollow hosting facility in Texas. BitNile, Inc. determined that the site is no longer economically viable and therefore began making weekly shipments to move the equipment to a safe and secure location for future deployment.（BusinessWire）
13.
Almost two years after first announcing the planned acquisition of a natural gas power plant in the state of New York, bitcoin mining firm Digihost (DGHI) said it has completed the purchase.
The Toronto-based firm was able to pay for the plant with cash, so avoided taking on debt or diluting existing shareholders’ equity, CEO Michel Amar said in a Wednesday press release. The plant is capable of generating 60 MW, bringing the firm’s energy capacity to 100 MW, or about 2 EH/s of mining computing power.（CoinDesk）
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