Galaxy Digital — the financial services and cryptocurrency investment management firm founded by Mike Novogratz — has set its sights on establishing a footing in the Bitcoin (BTC) mining sector. After a year of increasingly diversifying its products and activities, the company has announced two new forays into the Bitcoin mining sector for 2021. The first project will be a new business unit that Galaxy describes as "a one-stop financial services platform for miners." Dubbed Galaxy Digital Mining, the unit is being led by Amanda Fabiano — formerly the director of mining at Fidelity Investments. In a brief snapshot of …

Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of the major crypto exchange, has invested an undisclosed amount into Titan, a developer of software and services targeted at industrial Bitcoin (BTC) mining. According to Titan’s announcement, the investment will help continue development of the company’s products and improve efficiency and profitability of Bitcoin mining companies. Ryan Condron, co-founder and CEO of Titan, said that “mining has advanced from hobby, to industry, to critical global computing infrastructure, and Titan is prepared to help world-class miners meet these challenges.” Titan offers advanced pool and mining software targeted specifically for professional U.S.-based miners. Its network of …

The push by many in Iran to establish the country as a mecca for crypto miners may be having some unintended environmental consequences. According to a Bloomberg report, the energy requirements of Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto mining in Iran coupled with the demand for heat in an exceptionally cold winter have contributed to a natural gas shortage, forcing power plants to allegedly burn "low-grade fuel oils" to meet the country’s electrical needs. The result has been "thick layers of toxic smog" across many Iranian cities and blackouts as some power plants have closed. Iran is already facing economic burdens as …

Canaan, one of the earliest manufacturers of Bitcoin (BTC) ASIC miners, has released the Avalon Immersion Cooling Miner A1066I, a device designed to be liquid-cooled. Unlike traditional air-cooled devices and common types of liquid cooling for enthusiast PCs, the A1066I’s electrical components are submerged in a special dielectric fluid that carries heat away directly from the boards. Dielectric fluids are specially engineered to insulate the components and avoid the corrosion damage and short-circuiting that would occur with standard water or other types of fluids. This is also different from liquid cooling based on water blocks, where a special heat exchanger …

Since the creation of the first cryptocurrency over a decade ago, many have often been skeptical of their legitimacy, with some even dismissing them as a fraud. But in 2020, this paradigm seemed to have shifted. What has emerged is a shared recognition that Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets are here to stay and that they will play a key role in the future of global finance. This is not some far-fetched vision reserved to crypto-anarchists — financial actors that were traditionally wary of cryptocurrencies are now expressing confidence in their disruptive potential. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, for instance, …

Simon Byrne has taken at-home crypto mining to a whole new level as he looks to capitalize on Ethereum’s (ETH) potential. As first reported by Anthony Garreffa, Byrne has set up an ETH mining rig consisting of 78 GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. Although the RTX 3080 is marketed toward high-end PC gamers, crypto miners are using these powerful specs to enhance their capabilities. With each card using roughly 300W of power, Byrne’s setup uses 23.4KW of energy. And that doesn’t even factor in associated costs like AC. All said, his electricity bill is estimated to run up to around …

At the beginning of this unusual and sometimes difficult year, the cryptocurrency world reminisced about the crypto mining boom and whether it was now over. But soon, the fears were washed away as large companies registered on Nasdaq expressed clear interest in mining Bitcoin (BTC) for additional earnings. It has been said more than once that this year’s sharp rise in mining is directly related to the significant increase in cryptocurrency prices. During the summer, Bitcoin could be bought at just above $10,000; now, it’s priced at well over double the amount. Altcoins are not lagging behind, either. Ether (ETH) …

After months of wrestling for control of the company, Bitmain co-founders Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan have reportedly reached a settlement. According to Chinese crypto expert Colin Wu, and reported by multiple local publications, both parties have agreed to a $600 million compensation for Jihan Wu with Zhan taking control of the crypto miner maker operations. As part of the settlement, Wu will exit the company taking the BTC.com mining pool as well as Bitmain’s overseas mining centers. Thus, Zhan will be left with the Antpool mining pool and Bitmain’s China-based mining farms. The deal also sees Zhan left in …

Riot Blockchain, a Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency mining company, has inked another deal with Chinese mining giant Bitmain to buy 15,000 Antminers. According to a Dec. 21 announcement, the Colorado-based firm expects the new purchase will contribute a 65% increase to its total Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash rate. The purchase cost Riot $35 million, comprising of 3,000 S19 Pro Antminers and 12,000 S19j Pro Antminers. The company expects to receive and deploy the new miners starting from May 2021 up to October 2021. With the latest purchase, Riot further expands its total mining equipment from Bitmain, as the company has been regularly …

A new paper released on Thursday from a team of crypto researchers hopes to add to a body of work that will eventually identify “the Black-Scholes of decentralized finance (DeFi)” — an equation that will allow investors and users to properly value DeFi projects and potential profit/loss metrics in popular DeFi verticals such as liquidity mining. Why is such an equation important? At first blush, liquidity mining is simple enough to explain: in exchange for providing liquidity to automated market makers like Uniswap, users are rewarded with trading fees or governance tokens, often denominated in APY percentages. However, users suffer …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price rise has brought all sorts of comments out of the woodwork. Although many carry a bullish tint, some folks still doubt crypto as a new store of value class. David Rosenberg, the chief economist and strategist, as well as president, of the firm Rosenberg Research & Associates, recently described gold’s supply as more predictable than Bitcoin’s. "Everybody seems to believe that we're going to get to that 21 million cap on the supply constraint, but there's really nothing in the protocol to suggest that the supply of Bitcoin can't go up once we hit that limit," Rosenberg …

As Bitcoin (BTC) keeps hitting new all-time highs past $20,000, its network fundamentals paint a different picture compared to the previous 2017 bull run. Three years ago, on this very day, Bitcoin reached its first major all-time high of $20,000, recording up to 2,000% gains for that year. Over the course of 2020, Bitcoin enjoyed another price rally pushing its price to new historic highs and crossing $23,500 on Dec. 17 for the first time ever. Comparing the bull runs of 2017 and 2020, one may think that December has a special significance for Bitcoin. But other than this coincidence, …