This is the summary of the most important news of the week in the Bitcoin mining world.
Genesis Hashrate Grows in Sweden
The most noteworthy news in this weekly summary is about Genesis Digital Assets’ expansion of operations in Sweden. The company’s computing power now consumes 8 megawatts and could continue to increase in the near future, the company itself reported.
It is important to note that Genesis belongs to a select group of industry heavyweights. The largest companies are in a race to expand operations in order to face the halving of 2024 on their feet.
Dropbox Eliminates Unlimited Storage Plan Due to Miners’ Guilt
One of the most eye-catching mining-related (albeit non-Bitcoin) news in this roundup involves Dropbox. As reported by CryptoTrendency this week, the storage services firm decided to destroy its unlimited space plan as a result of crypto activity.
Chia miners who call themselves “farmers” used to contract this storage service to generate coins. Different from traditional digital mining based on Proof-of-Work (PoW), Chia’s mining is based on a protocol called Proof-of-Space-and-Time (PoST). As the name suggests, instead of requiring computing power to move the network, it requires storage.
Either way, Dropbox considered this practice an “abusive use” of its services and proceeded to remove its unlimited storage plan.
BlackRock’s Investments in Digital Mining Revealed
In case any doubts remained about BlackRock’s enthusiasm for Bitcoin, its investments in the digital mining sector are now known. The world’s largest asset manager shared that it has numerous investments in publicly traded companies in the sector.
After generating noise with Larry Fink’s positive statements and the request for a spot ETF, this chapter is made official. It is worth mentioning that other major competitors of the firm also have investments in mining companies, as reported by specialized media.
Miners Face $2.8 Billion Drop in Monthly Income
Another of the starring news items in this Bitcoin mining summary has to do with the drop in revenues for companies in the sector. During the second half of August, mining companies’ revenues went to the floor following the decline in the price of BTC.
As reported by financemagnates.com, a group of five major mining companies retreated $2.8 billion on Thursday. Meanwhile, the overall market capitalization of listed companies retreated 30% from $9.5 billion to $6.7 billion.
Some giants such as Riot and Marathon led the decline. The remarkable pullback in BTC price, as stated at the beginning, becomes one of the biggest punishments for mining firms at this time when they need liquidity to expand.
Bitcoin Difficulty Hits New All-time High of $55.62T
Bitcoin mining difficulty reached a new all-time high this week by standing at 55.62T. As reported by this media outlet, the level of complexity is poised to continue rising in the next adjustment.
It should be remembered that these adjustments occur automatically in the network every 2016 blocks. The purpose of these adjustments is to keep the processing time of each block within a margin of approximately 10 minutes. Thus, when the number of connected devices increases, the difficulty increases and vice versa.
During the last few months, large companies in the sector have increased their hashing power with the aim of receiving halving in the best way. However, the increased difficulty makes the business less profitable, which adds to other constraints such as the rising price of energy and the fall of BTC.
By Audy Castañeda
