Author | Wu Talks about Blockchain
Sponsored by Bitdeer, a Nasdaq-listed mining company
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Trump said at the Bitcoin Conference that he would ensure that the United States becomes the global cryptocurrency capital and the world's Bitcoin superpower, and we will achieve this goal. If cryptocurrency is going to define the future, I hope it will be mined, minted and manufactured in the United States. We will build power plants on site, we will generate electricity with fossil fuels because we have to, we will use nuclear energy, we will do it in an environmentally friendly way, but we will generate enough electricity.
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Crypto miner Northern Data is in talks with potential advisers about a joint project for its artificial intelligence cloud computing and data center businesses for an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States that could value the company at up to $16 billion. According to current plans, Northern Data will list an entity consisting of its cloud computing business (called Taiga) and data center (called Ardent) on Nasdaq as early as the first half of next year.
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Iris Energy, an Australia-based crypto miner, has raised $413.4 million through share issuance since mid-May to fund its expansion plans through 2024. From May 15 to June 28, the company sold 39.8 million shares through its at-the-market share issuance program (ATM), earning total proceeds of $413.4 million. The company raised $257 million in equity financing in the first quarter and an additional $44.8 million between March 31 and May 15. In total, the company raised about $714 million in the first half of this year.
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The Paraguayan National Electricity Administration (ANDE) announced a 14% increase in electricity prices for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining, prompting mining companies to consider stopping operations. A company that originally planned to invest more than $400 million has withdrawn its investment due to the lack of clear policies. Andy Jasmin, vice president of the Paraguayan Digital Asset Miners Association, said that this move damages the investment environment, and the increase in electricity prices has caused some companies to withdraw, highlighting Paraguay's lack of legal protection and investment security.
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Paraguayan Senator Salyn Buzarquis has harshly criticized the Paraguayan National Electricity Agency (ANDE), saying that senior officials accepted bribes to allow illegal Bitcoin mines to operate privately. Salyn Buzarquis said that these unnamed officials received bribes of up to $500,000 per month and called on ANDE President Felix Sosa to resign or be questioned about the matter. Last week, ANDE announced an increase in electricity prices for legal cryptocurrency mining operators in Paraguay, with the highest increase reaching 14%.
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The Paraguayan Senate has passed a series of reforms that amend the penalties for energy theft related to energy and cryptocurrency mining. Under the new law, individuals and companies that steal energy for cryptocurrency mining will face up to 10 years in prison, while energy theft for other purposes will face up to 3 years in prison or an indeterminate fine.
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According to f2pool data, with Bitcoin trading below $58,000, inefficient miners face challenges in current market conditions. At a rate of $0.08/kWh, ASICs with an efficiency below 23 W/T are losing money.
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BitDeer announced that it has completed the tape-out of the 14 J/TH SEAL02 chip, and the wafers are expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2024. It is planned to deploy its own ASIC mining machines with a capacity of 3.4 EH/s to data centers in Texas and Tydal, Norway by the fourth quarter of 2024, and the total computing power will reach 11.8 EH/s by the end of the year.
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Bitcoin mining companies Bit Digital and Iris Energy released their bitcoin mining data for the past three months. Despite the increase in computing power, the bitcoin output of the two companies has been on a downward trend since April. Data shows that Bit Digital mined 119.3 BTC in April, 63.3 BTC in May, and 61.7 BTC in June. Iris Energy's output in the same period was 358 BTC, 230 BTC, and 233 BTC respectively. In addition, Argo Blockchain mined 99 BTC in April, 45 BTC in May, and 44 BTC in June.
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TeraWulf CSO Kerri Langlais said in an interview that it would consider inorganic growth through mergers and acquisitions, but it would be meaningless if it did not consider profitability; TeraWulf is still more focused on existing organic growth and shareholder returns. Success depends not only on the speed of expansion, but also on wise capital allocation to bring continuous returns to our shareholders. Langlais expects to see more M&A proposals for Bitcoin mining companies, but at the same time he pointed out that valuations may vary greatly, making it difficult to determine which transactions are worth pursuing, and hopes that the valuation of Bitcoin mining companies will shift to traditional commercial business standards such as profitability and EBITDA. In addition, Langlais said that most of TeraWulf's Bitcoin is mined with nuclear energy, and as long as the price of Bitcoin is above $40,000, it can remain profitable. (Cointelegraph)
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Crypto mining company Hut 8 has signed a power purchase agreement to build a power plant with 205 megawatts of immediately available power capacity in West Texas. The transaction is the first transaction in Hut 8's previously announced 1,100 megawatts of dedicated energy capacity development plan. Once completed, the transaction is expected to increase Hut 8's total capacity of owned and managed service power to approximately 1.3 gigawatts. (The Block)
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Dorsey's Block announced a partnership with Core Scientific to develop a Bitcoin mining chip project. Block will provide 3nm mining ASIC chips, manufactured by the Proto team, by working with the mining community to build mining chips, systems and software solutions (including mining development kits currently in the testing phase) in an open and transparent manner. Core Scientific became the first company to purchase Block's new ASIC technology for large-scale mining operations.
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Bitcoin mining company Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. has built a new Bitcoin mine in Mississippi to expand its Bitcoin mining operations. The mine was officially opened on July 1, 2024, with 2,400 Bitcoin mining machines, and is expected to further increase production capacity in the coming months.
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Bitcoin mining company Northern Data AG has announced a capital increase. With the approval of the Supervisory Board, the company will issue 10.7 million new shares, representing 20% of its existing share capital. The shares will be sold at 20 euros per share, slightly above the market average price. The move is expected to generate 214 million euros ($233 million) in proceeds, which will be invested in Nvidia GPUs and infrastructure to support generative artificial intelligence (AI) innovations. The company aims to enhance its cloud platform and expand its data centers in Europe and the United States.
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Cipher Mining Inc., a U.S. bitcoin mining company, is considering a sale and has received multiple acquisition intentions. Cipher is working with consultants to assess the interest of potential buyers. In the past 12 months, Cipher's stock price has risen by more than 40% in the New York Stock Exchange, and its current market value is about $2.2 billion. The AI boom has caused a shortage of data center space, making crypto mining companies an acquisition target for AI companies to improve computing power. Last month, cloud computing company CoreWeave Inc. proposed to acquire Bitcoin mining company Core Scientific Inc. for about $1 billion, and Northern Data AG, which has transformed into a high-performance computing provider, is considering listing in the United States with a valuation of up to $16 billion.
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HIVE Digital, a Canadian mining company, announced plans to build a 100 MW hydroelectric data center in Paraguay, aiming to increase its Bitcoin mining hash rate to more than 12 EH/s next year. As part of the expansion, HIVE acquired another 500 S21 Pro Antminers. As of July 21, 2024, HIVE holds 2,521 BTC, worth approximately $170 million.
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Cory Klippsten, CEO of Bitcoin financial services company Swan, tweeted that the company will cancel its public listing plan and shut down its Bitcoin mining business. Swan originally planned to go public by the end of this year, but decided to cancel the plan due to poor revenue expectations for the recent mining business. Swan's managed mining business was launched in July 2023. In addition, this adjustment has also led to layoffs in multiple functional departments of the company.
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Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital has been fined $138 million for violating a confidentiality or non-circumvention agreement. Michael Ho, former co-founder of US Bitcoin Corp and chief strategy officer of mining company Hut 8, won a unanimous jury verdict in a breach of contract lawsuit against Marathon Digital. Ho worked on a growth strategy for Marathon in 2020, and the court found that Marathon violated the non-circumvention agreement by executing the strategy without compensation. A non-circumvention agreement is a legally binding agreement designed to protect a company or individual from being bypassed by other parties involved in a transaction. (Cointelegraph)
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Crypto mining company Riot Platforms announced today that it has acquired Kentucky-based Bitcoin miner Block Mining for $92.5 million to expand its mining business. The acquisition agreement was paid for $18.5 million in cash and $74 million worth of Riot common stock. Riot said the acquisition could immediately add 60 megawatts of current operating capacity, and plans to further expand Block Mining's two sites, with the goal of achieving 110 megawatts of self-mining operations by the end of 2024, which would bring Riot's potential total power generation to 2 gigawatts. (The Block)
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Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital is looking to work with blockchain developers to build a Bitcoin L2 cross-border payment solution. Julian Duran, the company's head of sidechain products, revealed this information at the Bitcoin 2024 conference on July 26. Duran said that cross-border payments are "the biggest use case for blockchain, especially Bitcoin." He pointed out that in emerging markets, the average cost of overseas remittances is 8% to 10% of the transaction value, and settlements usually take 3-4 days. In contrast, Bitcoin transfers are usually completed within 10 minutes, and second-layer solutions may be faster. Marathon also focuses on the field of real asset tokenization (RWA), and has begun planning tokenized whiskey barrels in the United States and working with an RWA platform to protect French castles.
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Shenma Miner announced the launch of two water-cooled miners, namely M63S+, with a computing power of 450 TH/s, an energy efficiency ratio of 17J/T, and a water outlet temperature of 70 degrees; M64, with a computing power of 206 TH/s, an energy efficiency ratio of 19.9 J/T, and a water outlet temperature of 80 degrees. Shenma Miner also released the air-cooled version of the miner M60S+, with a computing power of 210 TH/s and an energy efficiency ratio of 17 J/T; the immersion miner M66S+, with a computing power of 318 TH/s and an energy efficiency ratio of 17J/T. In addition, Yang Zuoxing, the founder of Shenma Miner, said that by 2026, the electricity cost of solar mining is expected to drop to about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, and the Shenma solar mining container system is expected to be launched soon.
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Bitcoin mining companies evaluated each other at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. Bitwise research director Ryan Rasmussen expects consolidation in the bitcoin mining industry over the next 18 months as certain well-capitalized miners look to swallow up competitors. In a recent research report, brokerage Benchmark identified technology-focused bitcoin miner Bitdeer as a potential acquisition target. Bitdeer CSO Haris Basit said the likelihood of a hostile takeover is low because its capital structure makes it difficult for competitors to gain control, but also believes that acquisitions are a way for the company's management team to try to add value to the existing company. In addition, Bitdeer also uses some of its production capacity for AI and high-performance computing companies to generate revenue, and has entered the ASIC industry to produce chips specifically for bitcoin mining. Marathon Digital is more interested in acquiring BTC. Jayson Browder, senior vice president of government affairs, said that it focuses on its own operations rather than evaluating competitors. The company has a reserve of 20,000 BTC, worth more than $1.3 billion. (Decrypt)
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Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms released its earnings report, saying that in Q2, total revenue was $70 million, the average direct cost of mining Bitcoin was $25,327, a net loss of $84.4 million, and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was -$75.2 million. As of June 30, 2024, Riot Platforms held 9,334 uncollateralized Bitcoins, all of which came from the company's own mining operations.
