Marathon Digital Holdings, a United States enterprise Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, has unveiled plans to achieve 70% carbon neutrality for its cryptocurrency mining operations. The company aims to reduce its carbon footprint by constructing a new data center that will host approximately 73,000 previously purchased Bitcoin miners as part of a new 300-megawatt operation located in Texas. To achieve this goal, Marathon plans to begin construction in October 2021 alongside Compute North, a long-standing industry partner. Under the terms of the agreement, Marathon will provide Compute North an 18-month bridge loan worth up to $67 million. “Compute North is a …

Disclaimer: This article has been updated to reflect that BTC.Top has begun signaling for Taproot activation. The top-10 Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools by hash rate distribution are now signaling for Taproot activation with BTC.Top being the latest among them as of the time of writing. Indeed, 90% of Bitcoin’s hash rate briefly signaled for the protocol upgrade with the figure now standing at about 73%. Tweeting on Monday, crypto exchange giant Binance announced that Binance Pool had begun signaling for Taproot. According to the Taproot Signal Twitter bot, Binance Pool’s maiden Taproot signal occurred at block height 683,878. Based on …

The road to the Taproot upgrade finally coming in 2021 is already underway, with major Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools already signaling support. According to data from Taproot.watch, a webpage created by Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg, Taproot signaling now accounts for about 44% of the total Bitcoin hashing power as of the time of writing. AntPool and F2Pool — the two largest Bitcoin mining pools by hash rate — are among the earliest supporters of the Taproot activation in the mining arena. Other pools in support are Foundry USA and Slush Pool, with the latter responsible for mining the first signaling …

Popular crypto market analyst Willy Woo noted reports identifying the blackouts were published late last week, with the power outages occurring to facilitate safety inspections in response to a recent flooding accident at a local coal mine that saw 21 miners temporarily trapped underground after power and communications went down. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, or CBECI, Xinjiang represents nearly one-quarter of the global hash rate. The analyst noted that yesterday saw the largest daily drop in total Bitcoin network hash rate since November 2017, with hash rate plummeting from 172 million terahashes per second to less …

The crypto exchange, whose CEO has previously dissuaded employees from expressing political views, started its initial public offering off with a message referencing U.S. President Joe Biden’s stimulus package. According to Coinbase, the crypto exchange had mining pool F2Pool embed the title of a New York Times article in the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain at 2:05 PM UTC today. The message in block 679,187 refers to the U.S. Congress passing the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 on March 10 — a bill which set aside $1.9 trillion for measures aimed at curbing the economic impact of the pandemic. In posting …

United Kingdom-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Argo Blockchain just recorded the best quarter in its history, generating record revenues for three months straight. Yet despite the burgeoning cryptocurrency mining venture emerging in the west, the vast majority of Bitcoin production still takes place in China, where cheap, coal-powered electricity fuels an untold number of mining rigs. A recent report by Nature.com revealed that as much as 75% of Bitcoin mining takes place in China — news which must fall hard on the ears of Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den investor Kevin O’Leary, who recently labeled all Bitcoin mined with the …

Shares of Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) surged on Monday after the cryptocurrency miner announced a significant increase in mining capacity in the first quarter, allowing it to up its stake in Bitcoin (BTC) by a considerable margin. MARA stock jumped 15.8% to close at $56.56, marking a new all-time high. The crypto mining stock rose by as much as 17.1% earlier in the day. By comparison, the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.7% on Monday. Meanwhile, the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund advanced 1.9%. At current values, Marathon Digital has a total market capitalization of $5.6 billion, putting it among …

Publicly-traded cryptocurrency mining firm Argo Blockchain will launch a Bitcoin (BTC) mining pool powered solely by clean energy, the company announced on March 26. Argo has partnered with fellow eco-friendly mining firm DMG Blockchain to create Terra Pool — a Bitcoin mining pool consisting of a hash rate derived from both company’s hydroelectric power sources, which the firm claims is the first of is kind. Argo Blockchain PLC is a United Kingdom-based mining company with three operational facilities in Canada set up to mine Bitcoin, and the privacy coin, Zcash (ZEC). The firm recently acquired a 320-acre plot of land …

SBI Crypto, the mining subsidiary of Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings, has opened its mining pool to the general public. As one of the fruits of a strategic partnership between SBI and the German tech firm Northern Data AG, the pool reportedly now ranks 11th globally, according to SBI's announcement on March 19. It mines three assets, Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV), with a revenue measured in dollars per terahash per day of $0.3897, $0.3805 and $0.3519 respectively. Prior to its partnership with Northern Data AG and the Texas-based data center operator Whinstone US back in …

Some Ethereum miners are trying to drum up support for a demonstration of force to show their opposition to the impending implementation of EIP-1559. Amid the backdrop of ever-escalating Ethereum fees, the Ethereum Improvement Proposal seeks to replace the network’s existing bidding-based fee market with a fixed price and burn mechanism. However, EIP-1559 — which is scheduled to go live in July, will significantly impact the revenue of miners. Some analysts estimating Ethereum miners could lose up to 50% of their profits. To signal their opposition to the proposal, some Ether miners are now planning a 51-hour show of force …

Bitcoin (BTC) mining rig manufacturer Bitmain has issued a notice to customers stating that business operations will resume as normal in light of former chairman and CEO Jihan Wu’s departure from the company. Orders of Bitmain’s ASIC mining rigs were previously halted temporarily in 2020 during an internal power struggle at the Beijing-based hardware company. In a dramatic saga that saw Bitmain’s two co-founders, Micree Zhan and Wu, attempt to oust one another from the leadership of the company, Zhan temporarily stopped a Shenzen subsidiary from shipping products to customers, as reported by local outlet The Block Beats at the …

The end of 2020 has been lighting up crypto-centric subreddits and feeds of Bitcoin hodlers as the appetite for the digital bullion reaches an all-time high. The explosion has been accelerated via the adoption of the network by PayPal, along with the long-sought out stamp of approval from respected figures like Michael Saylor, Jack Dorsey, and Paul Tudor Jones. The corresponding price appreciation and mainstream awareness from the likes of Maisie Williams and the most recent institutional buy-in from MassMutual continue to buoy the price and sentiment surrounding Bitcoin (BTC). The tide continues to rise as the work-from-home dynamic drives …