Now responsible for the second biggest contribution to the Bitcoin hashrate, Kazakhstan’s energy grid may be unprepared to handle the addition of many cryptocurrency miners from China and others looking to capitalize on low cost electricity. In a Nov. 10 report from Reuters, government officials in Kazakhstan estimate that unregistered crypto miners in the country could be consuming twice as much power as those registered to avoid paying taxes and other fees. Together, all crypto miners in the country could be using as much as 1.2 gigawatts, or roughly 8% of Kazakhstan's total power generation capacity. According to Murat Zhurebekov, …

United Kingdom-based crypto mining company Argo Blockchain will be funding part of the building and equipment of its planned 800-megawatt data center in West Texas through an offering of senior notes. According to a Nov. 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Argo plans to offer $57.5 million worth of 8.75% senior unsecured notes set to mature on Nov. 30, 2026. The company said it intends to use the proceeds for rigs at its Texas crypto mining facility as well as construction costs. Argo broke ground on the 200 MW crypto mining facility based in July, reporting the site …

According to new legislation passed by the upper house of the country's national parliament today, crypto businesses in Kazakhstan may soon be subjected to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, as reported by local news outlet Vlast. The new law extends the country's financial monitoring system to cover crypto service providers. The new legislation would also establish a legal institution of public officials. When a firm launches its cryptocurrency trading service or issues digital assets, it would have to notify the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry in Kazakhstan. The institution will be in charge of conducting a risk assessment, …

U.K.-based crypto mining company Argo Blockchain’s plans to build an 800-megawatt data center in West Texas could cost anywhere from $1.5-2 billion. According to a Nov. 5 regulatory filing from Argo, the $2 billion cost estimate for the Helios mining facility built on a 320-acre land plot in Texas was based on “the type of mining machines to be installed in the facility, the mix of owned and hosted machines, the cost of raw materials, labour and power required to construct the facility, the timing of build-out and machine purchase, and other factors.” However, the firm added that this was …

The increased popularity of Ethereum (ETH) has proven to be a double-edged sword. Its use has positioned the technology as valuable and great in potential, although also triggering increased congestion, making transactions slow and expensive. As a result, new blockchains have emerged as a way to decrease costs common to the industry. One of these is Solana (SOL) -- an exchange developed to transact at speeds greater than 50,000 transactions per second for less than $0.0001 per transaction -- a significant improvement from what users have noticed on Ethereum. That said, concerns around the use of old blockchain infrastructure extend …

Prime Blockchain (PrimeBlock), a new cryptocurrency mining company in the United States, is hiring its inaugural management team after starting mining Bitcoin (BTC) in September. PrimeBlock told Cointelegraph on Thursday that it appointed Goldman Sachs veteran Gaurav Budhrani as the company’s CEO. Budhrani spent over 10 years at Goldman, with his latest position featuring crypto investment banking coverage, including the $98 billion direct listing for Coinbase crypto exchange that Goldman was leading. Budhrani said on his LinkedIn that he completed over $300 billion of transactions across many crypto-related verticals, including “cryptocurrencies, semiconductors, next-gen computing technologies, and software.” The firm has …

U.S.-based crypto mining company Marathon Digital Holdings holds more than $460 million in Bitcoin mainly from mining and purchases since last year. According to a Nov. 2 report, the mining firm said it had been HODLing all Bitcoin (BTC) generated from its mining operations — roughly 2,640 BTC — since its last sale in October 2020. In addition, Marathon Digital purchased more than 4,812 BTC in January when the price of the crypto asset was under $35,000. At the time of publication, the BTC price is $62,056, giving the mining firm’s 7,453 BTC holdings a value of roughly $462 million. …

The Laos government’s pilot project to explore cryptocurrency mining and trading is expected to bring in roughly $194 million towards the country’s total domestic revenue projected for 2022. According to a Nov. 2 report from Malaysian news outlet The Star, the Laotian government’s recent bid to capitalize on China’s crypto mining crackdown may be netting the country 2 trillion kip — roughly $194 million at the time of publication — in revenue from six firms. The companies in the public-private mining pilot program officials approved in September include Wap Data Technology Laos, Phongsubthavy Road and Bridge Construction, Sisaket Construction Company …

Cryptocurrency mining firm Argo Blockchain has just released its Q3 financial report detailing record setting revenues for the period. The London headquartered company reported that it had mined 597 BTC and “BTC equivalents” during the third quarter of 2021. At current prices, Argo’s Bitcoin haul would be worth roughly $36.5 million. As of Sept. 30, the firm had amassed holdings of 1,836 BTC (roughly $113 million at current prices). Argo also reported a gross margin of 120% and a mining net margin of 85%, estimating it cost the firm just $6,293 to mine each Bitcoin on average. Overall, the firm …

Major U.S.-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Genesis Digital Assets is building a new data center in West Texas. According to the firm’s Nov.1 announcement, the new industrial-scale BTC mining data center will have a capacity of 300 megawatts and will operate using unspecified “sustainable infrastructure.” Its energy will be sourced from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). As part of the announcement, Genesis co-founder and executive chairman Abdumalik Mirakhmedov emphasized that “sustainability” is a key part of the firm’s plans for “rapid expansion.” ERCOT supplies more than 26 million customers in Texas with electricity. As of April this year, …

Two Bitcoin mining giants are duking it out for cheap electricity in the tiny town in Texas. Both Bitdeer, a mining firm that spun out from Chinese giant Bitmain, and Riot Blockchain, one of leading publicly traded Bitcoin mining firms in the United States, are operating data centers hosted at a former aluminium smelting facility in the Texan town of Rockdale. The town’s aluminium smelting plant was previously the world’s largest, until the company that ran it, Alcoa, began winding up operations in 2008. According to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, the facility’s energy capacity was wasted …

It all started with mining Bitcoin (BTC) in a dorm room. What started as a hobby with a few mining rigs scaled into twenty industry-scale mining farms across the globe. Because we scaled our operations in a new industry, we had to discover what worked and what didn’t through trial and error — because there’s no handbook for this. Building a multi-site, scaled operation like ours isn’t easy, but if you’re looking to start your mining operations, scale what you have, or invest in a mining company, here are the seven biggest lessons we learned to help you navigate your …