The bitcoin mining pool Poolin announced Monday that it has started working with the US-based crypto lender BlockFi, acting like an interbank lender and providing a source of capital for Poolin. The firm initially rolled out crypto lending offerings in February via its Singapore-registered wallet entity, Blockin. With more capital now available, Poolin will be able to extend the business to more miner customers and offer annualized interest at levels that can be below 6%. With roughly 20% of bitcoin’s total network, Poolin the second-largest bitcoin mining pool, close behind F2Pool with around 19 EH/s of hashing power.
Poolin ventures with multiple business lines
Yang Jianguo, the head of Poolin’s financial services, said that the mining pool is a traffic business, and it is getting more and more competitive. He added that the bitcoin mining pool has its unique advantage, but they also want multiple business lines – not just lending but also financial services – that are parallel to their pool business. Last year, the firm developed and launched its custodial Blockin wallet. The firm is the latest major bitcoin mining pool to have expanded into crypto lending products, despite a drop in demand after the major sell-off in March which force-liquidated the bitcoin collateral of many crypto miner operators in China.
Regulators in Sichuan order to shut down crypto mining firms
The regulators in China’s Sichuan region have sent a notice to all crypto businesses in their jurisdiction end to all crypto mining and mining-related activities in an orderly manner. China is responsible for more than 50% of bitcoin’s hashpower that is generated all around the world. The shut down of crypto mining activities in the region would heavily impact the mining industry. According to the PANews report, it is estimated that 9.96% of the bitcoin hash rate is generated in that region. Sichuan has long been recognized as one of the regions of the world with the most favorable conditions for Bitcoin mining.
