The Pennsylvania-based Stronghold Digital Mining has announced the completion of two private equity securities raises worth $105 million. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the firm’s first power generation facility, the Scrubgrass Generation Plant in Venango County, converts waste coal into energy on a scale equivalent to “a large-scale hydropower plant” that is then used to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The waste coal recycled by Stronghold was produced by coal mining operations in the 19th and 20th century. Stronghold's power generation processes allow it to rehabilitate large areas of land that were devastated as a result by waste …

Cryptocurrency investors awoke to another round of price declines on June 22 after the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to a 6-month low at $28,805. The dip below the crucial $30,000 level might appear to be a prime buying opportunity but data shows that institutional investors are continuing their longest selling streak since February 2018. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows the June 21 dip below $32,000 and recovery above $33,000 was just a precursor to Tuesday’s move which saw BTC hammered at the start of the trading day, reaching a low of $28,805 before bouncing back to …

Iranian provincial police are continuing their crackdown on crypto miners big and small, with news surfacing that they have confiscated more than 7,000 rigs at a farm operating in the capital of Tehran. According to a Tuesday report from the country’s state-run media, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), police seized crypto miners that were operating out of an abandoned factory. Experts on the country’s electrical grid estimated that the miners operating at full capacity would amount to roughly 4% of the average daily energy consumption in Iran. Tehran police chief Hossein Rahimi said authorities had found another 3,000 crypto …

BTC.com — a major crypto mining pool that is operated by BIT Mining and owned by the NYSE-listed Chinese lottery service provider 500.com — has announced the successful relocation of its first batch of mining machines to Kazakhstan. BTC.com was founded by Jihan Wu and was operated by Bitmain and Bitdeer until its acquisition by 500.com this February. As of the time of writing, the pool is the world’s fifth-largest, validating 10.4% of blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain. The relocation comes after the company was notified by the state grid in western Sichuan province that the power supply serving one …

China’s crackdown on Bitcoin (BTC) mining and cryptocurrency trading recently became a primary driver for the red candlesticks on crypto market charts. But one Bitcoin mining engineer believes China’s ban on crypto is “fantastic news.” Brandon Arvanaghi, a former security engineer at crypto exchange Gemini, compared China’s harsh stance against Bitcoin with the country’s ban on Facebook and Google. Arvanaghi called getting banned in China a rite of passage for free technology and stressed that the crackdown means that Bitcoin is working, not that it’s failing. “It’s making nations shiver in their boots,” he added. He said that nations are …

The highly anticipated Nasdaq debut of renewable energy-focused BTC mining firm, Bitfarms (BITF), saw the company’s stock fall by as much as 8.6% amid weakness in the broader crypto markets. BITF opened at $4.04 and quickly climbed a couple of percent to tag a high of $4.11 before dropping as low as $3.90 as cryptocurrency prices tumbled. Bitfarm’s shares last traded hands for $3.96. The share prices of publicly-listed Bitcoin mining firms have taken a beating over recent months. Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) is down roughly 51% from its early-April all-time high of $56.50 after its stock last changed hands …

Amid the ongoing crackdown on cryptocurrency mining in China, prices of graphic cards from major GPU providers like Nvidia and Asus are becoming more affordable. According to a Monday report by South China Morning Post (SCMP), prices of some graphic cards have tumbled as much as two-thirds on Chinese e-commerce platforms after Sichuan province terminated mining operations. Asus’ flagship RTX 3060 card was reportedly down to 4,699 Chinese yuan ($730) on Monday from its peak price of 13,499 yuan ($2,100) in May on JD.com-operated online retail site Tmall. Nvidia's Quadro P1000, a less advanced card, dropped to 2,429 yuan ($380) …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) hash rate has fallen to its lowest levels since early November as mining operations in China start unplugging. Bitcoin’s network hash rate, a measure of its computational horsepower, has slumped 46% since its peak level in mid-May. According to Bitinfocharts, Bitcoin’s hash rate is currently 91.2 exahashes per second (EH/s), close to half of its 171.4 EH/s high posted less than six weeks ago. Bitinfocharts has also reported a drop in mining profitability from a peak of $0.449 per day per terahash per second to current levels of $0.226 over the same period. Bitcoin’s hash rate has not …

While the SEC continues to slow-roll the listing of a Bitcoin ETF, traders on legacy exchanges eager to get some exposure to crypto will soon have another outlet. In an announcement on Friday, Canada’s Hive Blockchain Technologies revealed that it has received approval to list shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Hive currently trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker HIVE.V, and focuses on both Bitcoin and Ethereum mining. HIVE is excited to announce today that it has received approval to list its common shares on the Nasdaq Capital Markets Exchange, where it will begin trading soon. HIVE …

The hotly anticipated “London” Ethereum hard fork now has a set block height for three testnets — a key penultimate step toward a full mainnet launch. In a blog post on the Ethereum Foundation’s website, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko wrote that the Ropsten, Goerli and Rinkeby testnets now have set block heights at which London will go live, with Ropsten expected to be the first at block 10,499,401, or sometime on June 24. Goerli is expected to be next on June 30, and Rinkeby on July 7. A release schedule for the all-important mainnet upgrade is still being determined, …

China's crackdown on Bitcoin (BTC) mining may have unintended benefits for BTC price action, one analyst suggests. In a tweet on June 18, Charles Edwards, CEO of investment firm Capriole, argued that the Chinese miner exodus was already lowering Bitcoin's potential price floor. Don't believe the China FUD As a shake-up sees Bitcoin hashing power redistributed away from China, Bitcoin's electrical cost — the combined cost of keeping the network running — is dropping. As Edwards notes, this "Bitcoin production cost" is very rarely crossed by spot price. In becoming lower itself, the indicator thus opens up the possibility of …

With Bitcoin (BTC) mining concentration expanding in North America, Miami mayor Francis Suarez is looking to position his city as a hub for crypto mining activity. Speaking to CNBC on Thursday, Mayor Suarez said he is inviting foreign mining companies to consider establishing data centers in the city. According to Suarez, Miami’s ample nuclear electricity supply should attract Bitcoin miners looking to adopt clean energy sources for their operations, especially amid the current spotlight on the supposed carbon footprint of crypto mining. Mayor Suarez has previously weighed in on the issue claiming back in March that 90% of Bitcoin mining …