Bitcoin Mining Intensifies During Q4 of 2016

Bitcoin mining has become a serious and profitable industry. Over the past couple of years, the mining race to capture the last bitcoins has been on fire.

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MGT Capital Investments Joins the Mining Race

There’s a lot of discussions when it comes to the cryptocurrency network’s mining sector. Miners process transactions to gain freshly minted bitcoins and fees. In return, mining secures the network by confirming transactions included in blocks with mathematical proof-of-work.

Since Bitcoin’s inception, devices dedicated to mining have become more advanced and mining pools have been created. Large mining pools now exist including Antpool, Slush, F2Pool and more. Even Bitcoin.com has a mining pool that composes 1.7% of the Bitcoin network.

Now MGT Capital Investments has announced to its shareholders a successful second phase of its Washington state facility. This weekend the firm led by John McAfee said the mining operation was ahead of schedule. MGT Capital says its mining power has expanded to five petahash and is now a leader in the U.S. region. The firm announced it has mined over 170 bitcoins since it started two months ago.

“As we grow our Bitcoin footprint here, our expertise becomes an increasingly valuable resource as we enter into our upcoming joint venture with Bitmain Technologies of China, the preeminent worldwide leader in Bitcoin hardware manufacturing and sales,” said John McAfee, Executive Chairman of MGT.

Bitmain Announces Xinjiang Province Mining Facility

Beijing-based Bitmain revealed it is building a new mining center in China. Bitmain is calling the complex a state-of-the-art facility that churns 135 megawatts of power. The firm believes once complete the mining center will be among the biggest operations in the world. In addition to this wind and solar will be utilized to run the location. Alternative resources have become a game changer within the bitcoin mining industry.  

“We have seen that most data centers in the mining industry are wasting considerable money or other resources.  We want to provide a more professional and cost-saving example to the industry,” explained CEO Jihan Wu.    

Bitmain has become a mining industry leader and hopes to expand with its partnership with the leverage MGT Capital offers as well. The Xinjiang mining facility already has 45 structures ready to go, and construction should be complete by the end of 2016. However, the firm is expecting a colder winter this season, and the Xinjiang facility may take longer.

Facility Announcements Cause Mining Algorithm Discussion  

The Bitmain announcement has caused a discussion concerning mining algorithm changes to the Bitcoin network. The developer at SatoshiLabs and founder of the Slush Pool tweeted out to his followers an interesting statement.  

It’s a good time to discuss roadmap for mining algorithm changes. 75% hashrate in one place is disaster for bitcoin.

The tweet was a hot topic in the Bitcoin community as many shared differing opinions on Twitter and various social forums. Changing the mining algorithm is a pretty hardcore change to the protocol. So the statement led to many different kinds of sentiment towards the specific algorithm topic, and spurred more block size conversations as well.

Bitcoin Mining Industry Continues to Grow

One thing for sure is the Bitcoin mining industry has grown fast in a relatively short time. There are many players both new and old trying to compete together in this emerging market. New ASIC hardware and chips have become more advanced. Pools and facilities have become massive.

The community knows mining is integral to the network and its infrastructure ensures a secure environment. However, we don’t know how far the race will advance and how big these operations will get. Time will tell as many can envision wild cooling processes and future advancement in quantum computing. The Bitcoin mining industry isn’t slowing up anytime soon.

What do you think about the current state of Bitcoin mining and its surrounding ecosystem? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, Bitmain, and Blockchain.info websites.

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