Tag: Bitcoin (BTC) Mining

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Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) Mining Operations Unregistered With The Chinese Government Will Be Shut Down In China

Illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China will be shut down next September by order of the Economic and Information Commission (EIC).

According to information published last Saturday by a local media outlet, the EIC wrote a notice requesting local companies to suspend illegal crypto mining activities. The leaked announcement mentions that these companies will have until August 30th to submit reports on the process of cessation of their operations.

Illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities are defined in the publication as an operation that is not registered with the Chinese government, and that requires a high consumption of unauthorized electricity, in the absence of formal contracts with utilities.

China and illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations

This requirement of the EIC is unprecedented in measures taken earlier this year. In January 2018, the miners of the area were instructed to report on the 5th of each month for instructions on their orderly exit from the business. That is a measure that seemed to respond to the guidance of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), which, since January 2nd, has instructed local governments to take action to regulate electricity consumption, land use, taxes and environmental protection, in the face of the demand for resources by companies engaged in crypto mining.

In that sense, some reports indicate that many of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies located in the region are leaving for Canada and the United States in search of better conditions to dedicate themselves to this activity, even if they have to start from scratch once again.

These kinds of decisions have been generating concern within the cryptocurrencies market, as they are seen as part of a plan by the Chinese government to eradicate mining from the Asian country. That is due to the implications that such decisions could have on the niche, as it is a country that concentrates more than 50% of the large Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools, according to estimates made at the end of 2017, and a significant percentage of the processing power of this network.

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Crypto News

Hashflare Cloud Crypto Mining Platform Suspended All Its Bitcoin (BTC) Mining Contracts

Hashflare, one of the most popular cloud crypto mining companies, announced the suspension of all its Bitcoin (BTC) mining contracts, deactivating its SHA-256 hardware since July 18th and discontinuing support for this service.

The announcement was made by the company on July 20th through a statement published on its Facebook account, which informs users that the measure is being taken due to the difficulties that the company has been faced to generate revenue, due to recent fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) in the cryptocurrencies market.

It states that for more than a month users have been receiving lower payments than maintenance fees, reaching zero accumulations in their balances, a situation that has worsened in the last 28 days, as noted.

The statement added that the company has been making efforts to solve the problem by implementing various technical solutions, trying to reduce maintenance and electricity costs. But the results have not been favorable due to the instability of the cryptocurrencies market. However, they added that they aspire to be able to offer new solutions shortly.

Issues in withdrawing fund from Hashflare cloud crypto mining platform

In addition to the Facebook posting, the company also sent an email to active customers explaining the situation and providing some guidance. Once the information was disseminated, the reactions of users were quick to follow. In that sense, according to the comments made by the followers both in the social networks and in the Telegram group, the primary concern is how to withdraw the funds invested in the Hashflare cloud crypto mining platform.

On this basis, they claim that they are only allowed to withdraw minimum 0.01 BTC, in the best of cases. Some customers say that transactions are very slow and others say they have not been able to withdraw. As for the legal terms, users debate about the real possibilities of recovering their funds, fearing they’d lose the funds.

Hashflare cloud crypto mining platform has over three years in the industry and also offers cloud mining services for Ethereum (ETH) and some altcoins, such as Dash (DASH), besides Bitcoin (BTC) mining.

Initially, crypto mining contracts were established for life, but, since 2017, this period was changed to one year. Now, Hashflare suspended all its Bitcoin (BTC) mining contracts.

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Crypto

Bitcoin (BTC) Mining – Only 4 Million BTC Left For Mining

Bitcoin (BTC), the first and the most dominant cryptocurrency in the market, recently reached a round figure, as the 17 millionth Bitcoin was mined at block 520,013. The amount is extremely significant, leaving only 4 million Bitcoin (BTC) to mine on the horizon.

Let’s remember that Bitcoin’s White Paper, authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, included a maximum of 21 million bitcoins. However, despite the apparent closeness to the figure, it is estimated that the last Bitcoin (BTC) will be mined at the height of block 6,929,999, somewhen in the year 2140, according to the nowadays technologies.

The readjustment of the mining difficulty, which occurs every 2016 blocks, and the reductions in the reward are the key to this activity

The programmed reduction of the coins is called halving and occurs every 210,000 mined blocks (approximately every four years), halving the reward.

The first reduction occurred in November 2012 and the split reward was from 50 to 25 BTC. The second, occurring in July 2016, let miners earn only 12.5 BTC per a single mined block.

When reset to 0, miners will only receive rewards for commissions paid for transactions made by users.

Bitcoin (BTC) is a deflationary cryptocurrency

The fact that there are only 21 million BTC is important, as this limit prevents inflation. The amount of coins produced through mining is reduced in a programmed manner, which helps to make this cryptocurrency deflationary.

With increasing difficulty, Bitcoin (BTC) mining is demanding for more and more high-end equipment with increased computing capacity.

In fact, BTC can currently be mined only with ASIC chips specialized in the SHA-256 algorithm. The Chinese company Bitmain is the largest producer of this type of hardware and its most powerful equipment, so far, is the Antminer S9.

It is estimated that the concentration of ASIC miners in a blockchain threatens the decentralization of the blockchain, especially if they belong to the same producer, mainly due to the powerful computing capacity of this equipment.

Other cryptocurrencies, such as Etherum (ETH) or Ripple (XPR), on the other hand, do not have a clear production limit, so they have important inflation rates. However, at least the Ethereum community and its own founder, Vitalik Buterin, have begun to examine this aspect and to assess the advisability of setting a maximum.

In short, Bitcoin (BTC) mining has reached to only 4 million BTC left, thus, the Bitcoin (BTC) is becoming rarer. Thus, Bitcoin (BTC) might go up.

 

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