Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is the next company to wrap up its cryptocurrency-related services in response to the ongoing crypto crackdown in China. Alibaba officially announced Monday that its platform will prohibit sales of cryptocurrency miners and suspend categories for blockchain miners and accessories from its website on Oct. 8. In addition to stopping sales of crypto mining devices, Alibaba will impose a ban on using its platforms to sell major cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), as well as smaller coins like Quark (QRK). The new restrictions involve but are not limited to crypto mining-related hardware …

Blockchain and high performance computing firm Northern Data has announced it will acquire Bitcoin miner Bitfield. According to a Monday press release, all major shareholders signed a binding purchase agreement for the entire Bitfield enterprise to be sold at a value of roughly $460 million. Northern Data will acquire an equity interest of between 86% and 100% in Bitfield as per the agreement. Northern Data claims it has become “a leading global Bitcoin mining company” through the acquisition, with the firm gaining immediate access to 6,600 operational ASIC miners. A further 26,000 brand-new miners are expected to be deployed primarily …

Sparkpool, the second-largest Ethereum mining pool in the world, is suspending operations due to the ongoing Chinese crackdown on crypto. The mining pool officially announced that it has suspended access to new users in mainland China on Monday in response to Chinese authorities initiating new measures to combat crypto adoption in the country. Following the initial restrictions made last Friday, Sparkpool will continue shutting down services, and plans to suspend existing mining pool users both in China and abroad on Thursday. According to the announcement, the measures intend to ensure safety of users’ assets in response to “regulatory policy requirements.” …

The uncertainties sparked by China’s blanket ban on crypto trading have taken a downturn as homegrown crypto exchanges such as Huobi take proactive measures to protect and return existing investments residing on the mainland. Speaking to Cointelegraph in this regard, Du Jun, co-founder of Huobi Group, said that the crypto exchange wants to ensure the safety of the users’ assets as part of its social responsibility: “Customers will be able to transfer their assets to other exchanges or wallets over the next few months. Specific measures and operating rules will be outlined in future announcements.” Citing a possibility of a …

The Chinese government is getting more serious about cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry as state authorities are bringing forces to combat crypto operations in the country. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) officially announced on Friday a set of new measures to fight against crypto adoption in China, including promoting stronger inter-departmental coordination in cracking down crypto activity. 10 Chinese state authorities, including the PBoC, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Public Security, have established a “coordination mechanism” to prevent financial players from participating in any cryptocurrency transactions. According to the announcement, the involved authorities and …

Golem Network has launched an app that allows users to mine Ether (ETH) on their laptops, but it could be a long time before riches can be reaped. The decentralized computing resources sharing platform released the Thorg app that allows users to mine Ether on Windows-based PCs and laptops. The app runs in the background and harnesses unused computing power to process the calculations required for proof-of-working mining. Users are rewarded in Golem’s native GLM token, however, and not ETH. The system runs on layer-two aggregator Polygon, which alleviates any heavy transaction fees associated with the ERC-20 GLM token. It …

One River Digital, a cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund offering exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), has closed its first funding round after launching last year. One River Digital president Sebastian Bea confirmed Wednesday that the company had raised $41 million in a Series A financing round from investors, including Goldman Sachs and Coinbase Ventures. Other investors included American diversified global insurer Liberty Mutual Insurance and an alternative investment management firm, Infinity Investment Partners, as One River Digital announced on Tuesday. According to the One River Digital president, the fresh capital will help the company to increase its investment opportunities to …

Bitcoin (BTC) mining company BIT Mining plans to invest $12.14 million to develop an 85-megawatt crypto mining center in Ohio. As the company that owns the entire mining pool business operated under BTC.com, BIT Mining set up a joint venture agreement with Viking Data Centers to establish the Bitcoin mining facility. As part of the JV agreement, BIT Mining will pay $10.84 million in cash to Viking Data with the remaining sum to be settled in cash or company stock. Following its investment in Viking Data and the subsequent JV agreement, BIT Mining will own 51% of the Ohio Bitcoin …

As the Bitcoin network hash rate continues to recover amid global miners accumulating more capacity, the cryptocurrency is getting increasingly difficult to mine. On Tuesday, the Bitcoin network posted another mining difficulty adjustment, rising 3.2% to hit a difficulty rate of nearly 19 trillion, according to data from blockchain explorer BTC.com. The latest adjustment makes up the fifth consecutive surge of Bitcoin’s (BTC) mining difficulty since mid-July, with the difficulty rate increasing more than 31% from around 13.7 trillion, the lowest difficulty level since June 2020. The new positive adjustments follow a batch of four consecutive difficulty drops that started …

Major Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Genesis Digital Assets has secured $431 million in funding to expand its industrial-scale mining operations in the United States and Nordics. The new funding round was led by Paradigm, one of the biggest cryptocurrency investment companies backing major industry players like Coinbase and FTX. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang has also joined Genesis Digital’s board of directors, the firm announced on Tuesday. Other investors include the $11 billion asset manager Stone Ridge and its Bitcoin subsidiary NYDIG, and several venture capital firms and investment management firms like Ribbit, Electric Capital, Skybridge and Kingsway Capital, and FTX …

A new study from the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) has projected that Bitcoin’s energy consumption will remain below 0.5% of the global total over the next decade. NYDIG published its 'Bitcoin Net Zero' research paper this month, finding that Bitcoin’s energy consumption and carbon emissions will not skyrocket in the coming years, even if prices do. The study, which was penned by Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter and NYDIG founder Ross Stevens, discusses how the network’s carbon emission may change in the future, depending on fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price, mining difficulty and energy consumption. The study’s most …

Bitcoin miners are accumulating Bitcoin (BTC) as the network hash rate continues to recover, according to on-chain analytics provider Glassnode. In its Sept. 20 Week on Chain report, Glassnode stated that miner BTC balances are increasing, with wallets associated with miners having stockpiled 14,000 BTC (worth roughly $600 million) over the past six and a half months. The report also noted that the bull markets of 2020 and 2021 have seen miners hold onto a larger portion of their rewards than in previous market cycles. Miners usually sell BTC to cover their expenses, including electricity bills and hardware. The trend …