Unknown miners or miners that are not affiliated with any particular bitcoin mining pools are gaining a significant percentage of the total hash rate of the bitcoin mining network as it is right now. However, it is good to see the bitcoin mining network becoming increasingly decentralized because we are far too long Bitmain has had far too much influence. To see Antpool or other Bitmain owned or affiliated pools decreasing in power is a good thing.
A report from JP Morgan as well says that the production cost to mine 1 bitcoin averaged around $4000 worldwide in Q4 2018 that makes it really difficult for many miners globally. We see for example in China, it is much more profitable if you have a contract directly with the electricity generators as then you can do bitcoin mining for as low as $2400 per bitcoin. For anyone who has to stick with the global average, the price of bitcoin right now is not $4000 so they are either mining at a loss or turning off their machines. Many people are turning off their bitcoin mining machines, but others are finding ways to get cheaper bitcoin. So even though the price goes down, it’s not the end of bitcoin or the bitcoin network, it just means that miners innovate more.
Bloqlabs Titan:
Bloqlabs has launched the Beta version of Titan which is new software for cryptocurrency miners. The company says that they can maximize the hashrate on any given mining machine by up to double digits. While they are giving this program away for free, they do expect a percentage of the profits to come back to them. The main goal here is to lengthen the shelf life of mining machines. What Bloqlabs is doing with miners is not just for bitcoin mining but it can also be applied to lots of different mining algorithms such as litecoin mining and ethereum mining.
The Middle East become home for bitcoin mining:
The middle east is fast becoming a new home for crypto miners from China. Now in order to do this, miners are moving from China over to Iran but it is not easy to do that because Iran has banned the import of bitcoin mining rigs. So they are either turned away at the border or confiscated. But this shows the dedication and the innovation of miners. Interestingly, the Iranian customs officials are currently holding around 40,000 bitcoin mining rigs. What if Iran is one of the mystery miners? They could be considering the fact that they are holding 40,000 mining rigs although there is no evidence to back up this statement.
The Competition Continues:
It’s not just Iran but a lot of countries are being very competitive when it comes to bitcoin mining. For example, Georgia is continuing to put money in bitcoin mining even if the price of bitcoin is falling down. In total 200,000 regular Georgian people are mining bitcoin. That’s quite impressive for a country of 3.7 million people. In total 10% of Georgia’s electricity supply is being used to mine cryptocurrency. Bitfury remains a very relevant player when it comes to bitcoin mining in Georgia. Even though they had to scale back some of their operations as well, their Georgian operations remain quite strong. They are currently experimenting with 160 hermetically sealed stainless steel tanks filled with power-efficient chips and special cooling liquid. This is an experiment to help keep energy cost down and to make bitcoin mining cost effective.
In Georgia overall, they are being very pro crypto and blockchain. Bitfury has helped them migrate their whole land registry on to the blockchain. They are looking at different ways to do tax incentives and they do have some tax free zones right now in Georgia for cryptocurrencies.
Mongolia also wants to be in on the party. Mongolia has cheap power rates and is famously cold throughout the year. A company Ginco from Japan are tripling their total bitcoin mining capacity in Mongolia this year. So overall we see a lot of innovation happening in order to keep mining bitcoin. All of this might mean nothing when Paraguay’s golden goose project gets up and running as it will be the biggest bitcoin mine in the world.
What are your thoughts on the increasing competition in the bitcoin mining industry? Tell us in the comments section below.
