Democratic Senator Ron Wyden is digging into the activities of crypto companies that take advantage of tax breaks provided by the Opportunity Zone program. Senator Wyden’s main concern stems from the perception that some crypto companies may be taking advantage of what he called “a lack of safeguards and transparency measures” in the Opportunity Zone program. The concerns were raised in letters he sent to two companies and one individual. He wants to understand how they are providing the required reciprocal support for low-income communities as stipulated by the rules of the program. The Oregon Senator wrote letters to crypto …

Russian Deputy Minister of Energy Evgeny Grabchak proposed eliminating the legal vacuum around crypto mining in the country and introducing clear regulation. This statement continues the recent streak of support for the crypto industry among the officials. Speaking at the first national conference of legal crypto miners in Irkutsk on Saturday, Grabchak called for introducing the regulatory framework for the sector as soon as possible: "The legal vacuum makes it difficult to regulate this area and set clear rules of the game. This legal vacuum needs to be [eliminated] as soon as possible. If we want somehow to get along …

Bitcoin (BTC) begins the last week of March with a bang after returning to its yearly opening price above $46,000. In a surprisingly strong upward move for a weekend, BTC/USD began surging upwards Saturday, continuing overnight to challenge its highs from the start of 2022. Coming against an ongoing macro climate of considerable uncertainty, strength in Bitcoin is naturally being taken with a pinch of salt this month. The reaction is understandable given that previous attempts to break out of its multi-month trading range have all ended in failure. Despite volatile periods, bulls were always left disappointed and Bitcoin subsequently …

United States-based energy producer Exxon Mobil has reportedly been running a pilot program aimed at using the energy from excess gas to power crypto mining rigs — and it may be expanding its operations to four other countries. In a Thursday report, Bloomberg said Exxon Mobil had inked a deal with Crusoe Energy to use excess gas from oil wells in North Dakota to run Bitcoin (BTC) miners. The project reportedly uses 18 million cubic feet of natural gas per month — roughly 0.4% of the oil giant’s reported operations in the state, producing 158 million cubic feet of natural …

Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG), a crypto mining company in Pennsylvania, is turning waste from old power plants into energy to power hundreds of Bitcoin mining rigs. The company collects coal refuse, a leftover waste material from the process of coal mining, and burns it in what it says is an emissions-controlled environment at its energy generation facilities. Coal refuse can cause a raft of environmental problems, such as water and air pollution, and acid mine drainage, the acidic water which comes from coal mining operations. Collecting this waste and safely disposing of it while generating power for crypto mining is …

Proof-of-work (PoW) crypto mining won’t be banned in the European Union — not this year at least. That’s the conclusion from last week’s closely watched committee vote in the European Parliament (EP). A last-minute amendment presented by an ad hoc coalition of social democrats and Greens would have established a de facto ban on proof-of-work mining — the type of consensus mechanisms used by native cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) — has been decisively rejected. The crypto community can breathe easily, but some still worry that the industry’s problem with its energy-intensive consensus protocols remains. “My first reaction …

Buying a Coinbase stock (COIN) to gain indirect exposure in the Bitcoin (BTC) market has been a bad strategy so far compared to simply holding BTC. Notably, COIN is down by nearly 50% to almost $186, if measured from the opening rate on its IPO on April 14, 2021. In comparison, Bitcoin outperformed the Coinbase stock by logging fewer losses in the same period — a little over 30% as it dropped from nearly $65,000 to around $41,700 What's bothering Coinbase? The correlation between Coinbase and Bitcoin has been largely positive to date, however, suggesting that many investors consider them …

The energy usage and environmental impact of Bitcoin (BTC) mining have been frowned upon and been under the scanner by various international financial institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentions how Bitcoin mining consumes “vast amounts of computing power and electricity.” Bitcoin mining is an energy-consuming process, as it is a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain network that involves providing cryptographic proof to the network that a quantified amount of a specific computational effort has been used. The information used to verify this is stored in a block to be accepted into the network by other participants. Elon Musk, one of the …

Bitcoin (BTC) miners are holding more and more Bitcoin while “relentlessly expanding” their operations in 2022. A report by Arcane Research indicates that publicly listed Bitcoin miners are “constantly looking for expansion opportunities,” as they “plan to increase hashrate faster than the whole network in 2022.” 44.95% of the global hash rate derives from North American miners, according to the latest figures from the Cambridge Bitcoin electricity consumption index. With the massive projected increases in target hash rate among the publicly traded Bitcoin miners, it's "likely to increase." Jaran Mellerud, an analyst for Arcane Research, told Cointelegraph that “most publicly …

Canadian cryptocurrency miner Hut 8 posted mixed financial results on Thursday, as revenue and mining profitability soared while overall net income declined — underscoring a volatile end to the year for Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader digital asset market. The Toronto-based company, which trades publicly on the Nasdaq and TSX, saw its revenues surge to $45.69 million (C$57.901 million) in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from $10.25 million (C$12.986 million) the year before. Full-year revenues were $137.1 million, up 326% compared with 2020. Despite generating a large profit from mining activities, the company posted an overall loss of $0.53 …

A former blackhat hacker who goes by the name Gummo online claims to have amassed around $7 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC). Despite a flood of positive comments and posts relating to his interviews with the Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel — which has 3.18 million subscribers — information about Gummo is scarce elsewhere, which could either be by design or suggest that a large pinch of salt may be required when listening to his extravagant claims. He said that he has been working in the field for more than 30 years, and while he started hacking for illicit reasons …

The Financial Monitoring Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan reported earlier today that 55 illegal mining farms “voluntarily stopped their operation” due to an enforcement campaign by the regulator, and another 51 entities’ operations “were terminated.” The enforcement operation targeted illegal mining operations that compromised the nation’s energy network. The Agency called for developing a clear regulatory approach to crypto mining in its release. According to the release, not only had all the targeted operators frozen the mining process, but they also dismantled the rigs and removed them from the “places of deployment.” The release mentioned a number of high-profile …