Crypto mining companies have seen their stock prices increase as much as 120% over the last month, amid rebounding crypto asset prices, higher mining profitability, and sharp increases in BTC production. Crypto mining companies Marathon Digital Holdings (124.12%), Core Scientific (110.39%), Hut 8 (98.95%), and Riot Blockchain (96.69%) have seen their stock prices rocketing upwards over the last 30-days, according to data from Yahoo Finance — significantly outperforming Bitcoin (BTC) (18.0%) and Ether (ETH) (67.8%) asset prices. In a Q2 results filing on Aug. 11, Core Scientific reported a staggering 1601% increase in self-mined Bitcoin year-to-date, reaching 6,567 Bitcoin. Q2 …

The Ethereum Merge may be coming sooner than planned, after core developers announced a tentative Merge date of Sept. 15, which will see the blockchain transition to Proof-of-Stake. The Ethereum mainnet Merge date came into view after core developers such as Tim Beiko and Prysmatic Labs co-founder Terence Tsao agreed in an Aug. 11 developer call it would be when Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) hits 58750000000000000000000. This was confirmed in a Github post titled "Tentative mainnet TTD" which was committed to by Beiko on Aug. 11. While the exact date and TTD could be still be changed, the successes of …

Ethereum's native asset Ether (ETH) has more than doubled in value since bottoming out at around $885 in June 2022. Now, it eyes a decisive move toward $2,500 in August per a slew of technical and fundamental indicators. Ethereum chain split means more tokens A big part of Ether's ongoing rally has appeared due to "the Merge," a network upgrade that will switch Ethereum's underlying blockchain protocol from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) in September. Simultaneously, switching to PoS will also eliminate the role of miners in the chain by replacing them with validators. This fear has prompted Chandler Guo, …

Climate change has become an important issue over the years due to concerns over environmental changes caused by the emission of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Conversations have even reached the crypto space, and blockchain technology is being considered a potential tool to reduce carbon emissions. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) that use the proof-of-work (PoW) mining algorithm have come under scrutiny due to their alleged energy expenditure. To see where this scrutiny comes from, it first needs to be known how much energy is used when mining PoW cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately, estimating the amount of energy necessary to …

F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang has responded to allegations that his mining pool has been manipulating Ethereum block timestamps to “obtain consistently higher mining rewards." The allegations came from an Aug. 5 paper from researchers at The Hebrew University, claiming the mining pool has been engaging in a "consensus-level" attack on Ethereum over the last two years to gain an edge over "honest" miners. However, Wang on Twitter responded by saying that “we respect the *consensus* as is”, implying that intentionally exploiting the system's rules doesn’t necessarily mean that rules have been broken. We respect the *consensus* as is. If you …

Amid the soaring inflation, the European Central Bank (ECB) has found time to sum up its concerns about the “significant carbon footprint” of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies, which require vast amounts of computational power. ECB published the report titled “Mining the environment — is climate risk priced into crypto-assets?” on July 12. In the report, the ECB research group reinforces the environmental narrative about the battle of protocols, where the proof-of-work (PoW) concept represents a threat to the planet. In contrast, the proof-of-stake (PoS) is the only sustainable crypto option, experts argue. The article compares the amount of consumed …

The cost of mining one Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen to ten-month lows as mining hardware becomes more efficient, and difficulty has dropped 6.7% since its May peak. On Wednesday, strategists from JPMorgan led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou told investors that Bitcoin production costs have fallen to around $13,000 from $24,000 at the beginning of June. This is the lowest it has been since September 2021, according to the analysts citing a chart from Bitinfocharts, and comes as mining difficulty has fallen from its May highs of 31.25T to 29.15T. Lower Bitcoin production costs can potentially ease miner selling pressure and improve …

Crypto mining firm CleanSpark announced the purchase of more than 1,000 Bitcoin (BTC miners amid the market downturn, reporting a “substantially discounted price” compared to that earlier in 2022. In a Thursday blog spot, CleanSpark said it had acquired 1,061 Whatsminer M30S rigs currently mining Bitcoin at the Coinmint facility in New York, whose space the company shares with Riot Blockchain. The mining firm said it had purchased the machines for far less of price than that “just a few months ago,” hinting the recent bear market was responsible. CleanSpark also bought 1,800 Antminer S19 XP rigs in June following …

The price of cryptocurrency mining hardware is likely to continue falling in the near future amid the ongoing crypto winter, according to an executive at major Bitcoin (BTC) mining pool F2Pool. Supporting 14.3% of the BTC network, F2Pool is one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin mining pools. On Tuesday, F2Pool released its latest mining industry update. Focusing on June 2022 BTC mining results, F2Pool’s report noted that the majority of Bitcoin mining companies like Core Scientific have opted to sell their self-mined Bitcoin recently. Bitfarms, a major Canadian BTC mining firm, sold 3,000 Bitcoin, or almost 50% of its entire …

With many parts of Texas enduring days of temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in July, many crypto miners have shuttered operations in anticipation of the state’s energy grid being unable to meet demand. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, on Sunday called on Texas residents and businesses to conserve electricity with “record high electric demand” expected on Monday. According to ERCOT’s forecast, demand for electricity in Texas — due in part to running air conditioners amid extreme heat — could surpass the available supply. The energy supplier’s prediction model showed demand could reach a record high of …

Despite the myriads of state and federal regulatory hurdles faced by crypto businesses in the region, the United States plays a major role in preserving the Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto ecosystem. With China moving out of the picture following a permaban on crypto, the United States maintains the top position in terms of hash rate contribution and ATM installations worldwide. Prior to cracking down on BTC mining, China historically represented over 50% of the total hash rate up until Feb 2021. With China out of the competition, the U.S. picked up the slack to become the highest BTC hash rate …

In my latest article “Crypto, like railways, is among the world’s top innovations of the millennium,” I compare the blockchain revolution to the railway boom. If we apply this analogy further, what’s going to happen next? Stuart Hylton in his book What the Railways Did for Us: The Making of Modern Britain cites this quote: “The direct effects of railway building are, after all, considerable enough in themselves to require no exaggeration. They profoundly influenced the internal flows of traffic, the choices of the site and the patterns of land use, the residential densities and development prospects of the central …