Luzboa, a small energy trading company in Portugal, will soon start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as payment for electricity. The company’s president Pedro Morais Leitão announced the news to Portuguese publication Expresso on Wednesday, stating that the new payment option should become available this month. According to the executive, Luzboa will create a Bitcoin wallet in the coming days, allowing residents to pay for electricity under a new payment system known as “Bit Spot.” According to Leitão, the firm plans to instantly convert received Bitcoin into euros to protect its business from unstable prices. “We are aware of currency volatility, but …

Russia has reportedly imported thousands of cryptocurrency mining devices amid a massive surge in the crypto market. A senior executive at BitRiver, the largest crypto mining colocation services provider in Russia, claimed that a local client received over 20,000 crypto mining devices, Russian news agency Kommersant reports Feb. 10. BitRiver founder and CEO Igor Runets said that the total mining power of the imported hardware amounts to 70 MWh, which is reportedly estimated to make up the largest single batch of crypto mining hardware in Russia. Runets said that the hardware was delivered in December 2020 and was immediately set …

The recent surge of Bitcoin (BTC) price has driven notable growth in the amount of electricity consumed by Bitcoin miners, spurring another wave of argument in the community over the ecology of the seminal cryptocurrency. According to the latest data from Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, Bitcoin energy consumption has been at its highest historical levels since late 2020, with the estimated annual consumption level staying above 75 TWh for a record period of time. Bitcoin is now estimated to consume around 77.8 TWh per year, which is as much power as consumed by Chile. Bitcoin’s carbon footprint — the …

Bitcoin arouses passion, curiosity and has received more and more media attention, especially after having climbed the ranks of the best financial asset of the decade. However, whenever its price goes up, many doubts and questions arise, mainly around its origin and the energy expenditure by miners. The Bitcoin protocol has created a unique digital asset To understand how Bitcoin (BTC) is created and what mining is, the key is the double-spending problem. Before Bitcoin, there was neither a digital value to be transferred nor a digital asset to be divided into several parts. That is, if you scanned a …

Bitcoiners mining cryptocurrency at home this winter have been staving off freezing temperatures by putting them to good use as heaters. According to the Wall Street Journal, crypto miners in France and the United States report their overall heating costs have dropped — even if the temperature in their homes often gets far above what they’d prefer. Thomas Smith, a photographer based in California, has been using mining rigs to heat his home since at least 2019. He’s also been exploring some novel uses, including employing the miners to warm up his two chickens in an outdoor coop and to …

Mitsubishi Electric has teamed up with researchers from the prestigious Japanese university, Tokyo Tech, to jointly design a blockchain-based trading system that can support more flexible, peer-to-peer energy trading. Announced on Jan. 18, the new system is intended to support the efficient use of surplus electricity that is generated from renewable energy sources. In particular, it is hoped that the trading system can ensure that at any given moment, there will be the maximum available amount of surplus electricity accessible on the market for consumers. Peer-to-peer energy trading set-ups allow consumers and prosumers to engage in direct trading as buyers …

A three-year pilot scheme for an innovative blockchain-based electric vehicle charging platform has received $1 million in funding from Natural Resources Canada, a department of the country’s government. The scheme promises to reduce the cost of electric vehicle charging transactions and enhance power grid efficiency, according to an article on the independent Electric Autonomy Canada platform. The pilot will take place at two multi-tenanted office buildings in downtown Toronto, and is run by electric vehicle charging platform SWTCH Energy and intelligent energy software developer Opus One Solutions. The innovation comes through the understanding that electric vehicles aren’t just alternatively-powered cars, …

A blockchain-based energy trading platform backed by German tech giant Siemens is being publicly demonstrated in a Bavarian municipality today. The so-called “Pebbles” project — short for “peer-to-peer energy trading based on blockchains” — is holding a virtual demo of its blockchain-based marketplace platform for optimized electricity trading. The demo was officially announced by the project on Oct. 22. The public demonstration of Pebbles’ energy platform in the town of Wildpoldsried in Bavarian marks a major milestone after the project was launched in March 2018. Funded by German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Pebbles is a joint initiative …

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping, declared that China has plans to become carbon neutral by 2060, calling for a “green revolution.” If the plan is properly implemented, it could help China to finally shed its biggest-polluter status and significantly improve the global ecosystem, which could also drastically shake up the country’s eminent Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry. The most well-known mining hub of China is the Southern province of Sichuan, which has an abundant hydroelectricity sector. However, the electricity there is especially cheap only during the wet season, which takes place between May and September. Outside of that period, most …

The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) has launched a global standard for integrating blockchain technology into a decentralized vehicle charging network. The storage of excess energy generated by wind or solar is a big problem for the renewable energy industry as batteries are very expensive. But electric vehicles already have significant storage capacity so there's been a lot of work around plugging them into decentralized energy grids to store renewable energy. MOBI’s Electric Vehicle Grid Integration (EVGI) Working Group's first design specifications seek to lay the foundation for decentralized charging networks that better utilize excess green energy, detailing systems for …

A crypto payments network is celebrating three years in business — and claims it has now surpassed 4 million users worldwide. Electroneum says it is continually unveiling new features that help make our world a better place. One of its flagship products is a mobile-based cryptocurrency that allows people to top up their phones in more than 140 countries. And as Cointelegraph reported back in May, the digital payments project also allows consumers in four African countries to top up their electricity meters directly from the ETN app — with plans to expand this service to even more nations in …

The de facto state of Abkhazia threw the towel on its fight against crypto mining, with the president recently announcing measures to lift the nation’s current ban. According to Finanz.ru, Aslan Bzhania stated on Thursday that his government plans to introduce “the most optimal mechanism” to regulate crypto mining, rather than maintaining the state’s current prohibition on blockchain-related activities. Earlier this week, Ruslan Kvarchia, director of operational and technological management of the state’s official energy company, pointed to crypto mining as a major driver behind the current energy crisis affecting Abkhazia. Commenting on this situation, Bzhania said: “Now we are …