Crypto asset manager Valkyrie has filed an application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to trade an exchange-traded fund with exposure to Bitcoin mining firms on the Nasdaq Stock Market. In a Wednesday SEC filing, Valkyrie said its Bitcoin Miners ETF will not invest directly in Bitcoin (BTC) but at least 80% of its net assets would offer exposure to the crypto asset through securities of companies that “derive at least 50% of their revenue or profits” from BTC mining or providing hardware or software related to mining. The filing added Valkyrie would invest up to 20% of …

Another Bitcoin miner from the Solo CK mining pool has solo mined a new block on the Bitcoin blockchain, earning a block reward of 6.25 BTC (over $220,000 at current prices) as a result. The event took place on Monday at a block height of 720,175. Solo mining consists of attempting to validate blocks by a single miner, without teaming efforts with other miners on a mining pool, and running a full blockchain node. Without significant hashing capabilities, the odds of validating a block tend to be extremely unlikely. To increase these odds and avoid the costs associated with solo …

Global credit rating agency Fitch Ratings is warning public power utilities across the United States to mitigate the risk crypto mining could post their production of power. In a Monday notice, Fitch Ratings said that only utilities in states like Washington, which have excess generation capacity, may be capable of meeting the power requirements of many crypto mining operations. The agency claimed that though some crypto mining firms can become “the largest customer in a rural service territory,“ the operations typically bring in “very little additional economic benefits” from jobs or boosting the local economy. “The volatile and unregulated nature …

The Bitcoin network difficulty is determined by the overall computational power, which co-relates to the difficulty in confirming transactions and mining BTC. As evidenced by the blockchain.com data, the network difficulty saw a downfall between May and July 2021 due to various reasons including a blanket ban on crypto mining from China. The Bitcoin (BTC) network has recorded a new all-time high mining difficulty of 26.643 trillion with an average hash rate of 190.71 exahash per second (EH/s) — signaling strong community support despite an ongoing bear market. However, as the displaced miners resumed operations from other countries, the network …

On Jan. 20, the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the U.S. Congress House Energy and Commerce Committee convened a hearing to investigate the environmental effects of cryptocurrency mining. Despite the narrow focus, the conversation that ensued – which many industry experts appraised as a meaningful educational experience for the lawmakers – touched upon a range of blockchain-related issues and themes beyond energy consumption. Here is how it went down, and what comes next. Witnesses set the frame Following the opening remarks, the hearing kicked off with the witnesses delivering their testimonies. Bitfury CEO Brian Brooks made a point that it …

Five industry experts appearing before the United States House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee had different views on how lawmakers should address the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies. In written testimony released before a Thursday hearing on “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains,” former Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks argued that the energy consumption of Bitcoin (BTC) mining was “economically productive” given other assets including gold required roughly the same amount of energy for mining, with the “a host of other environmental concerns.” In addition, Brooks said that the traditional global banking system consumed roughly 2.5 times the …

In a report published on Thursday, The Central Bank of Russia has called for a blanket ban on domestic cryptocurrency trading and mining. The report titled "Cryptocurrencies: trends, risks, measures" compares cryptocurrencies to a Ponzi scheme and calls for a complete ban on their use throughout Russia. The authors claim that cryptocurrencies are highly volatile in nature and are being used as a tool for illegal activities. The report also warned that crypto could pose a risk to financial sovereignty and could aid people in taking money out of the national economy. The report read: “Potential financial stability risks associated …

Cryptocurrency mining has become a hot topic of conversation over the past couple of years due to its lucrative nature and the impact the industry has on the environment. The emergence of Web3 and the increased presence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has led to a new class of low-cost mining protocols with low-power network technology. These include LPWAN or LoRaWAN which are designed to transmit low bit rate data over long distances. One such protocol that has been gaining traction in recent months is MXC, a Web3 infrastructure protocol designed to provide geolocation-based LPWAN coverage to IoT devices …

Erik Thedéen, the vice-chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority has raised concerns over the growing use of renewable energy for Bitcoin mining. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Thedéen said that Bitcoin (BTC) mining has become a “national issue” and warned cryptocurrencies could pose a risk to climate change goals. He called upon European regulators to take special exception to proof-of-work mining which is primarily used by Bitcoin and a few other forked altcoins. He also advocated for proof-of-stake as a better, energy-efficient alternative: “We need to have a discussion about shifting the industry to a …

The percentage of the global Bitcoin mining industry running on renewable power increased by 1% to 58.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021 according to new data. The Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) announced the findings of its fourth quarter survey on Jan. 18. The survey focused on three metrics: sustainable power mix, technological efficiency and electricity consumption. Q4 #Bitcoin Mining Council Survey Confirms Improvements in Sustainable Power Mix and Technological Efficiency. Estimated sustainable energy mix was 58.5%. Join us at 5pm ET today for a full briefing.https://t.co/t1gTZV9GtT — Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) January 18, 2022 Founded in May 2021, the BMC …

Residents of Svaneti, Georgia, have reportedly been made to pledge a holy oath they will not mine cryptocurrency in order to deal with energy shortages blamed on Bitcoin mining. The economy of the northwest Svaneti region of Georgia depends on tourism spending, which rose every year from 2000 to 2019 according to Macrotrends. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, tourism plummeted in 2020 and has only recently begun to return to pre-Covid levels of growth. To make do, hundreds of residents turned to mining crypto which has been blamed for severely disrupting the electrical supply. A video cited …

As U.S. Congress is preparing to take a thorough look at the energy use of crypto mining, the list of witnesses for the Thursday hearing contains more proponents of blockchain technology than its outright critics. The House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee announced a hearing on “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains” last week, with the event itself scheduled for Jan. 20. The focus of the hearing will be on the energy and environmental effects of crypto mining, specifically as it relates to networks that use proof-of-work, or PoW, consensus mechanism. A Committee on Energy and Commerce staff …