Tag: Crypto Mining

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Crypto News Tech

AMD Launched Eight New Crypto Mining Rigs In Collaboration With Seven Manufacturers

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) entered the business of cryptocurrency mining, and now the company offers eight models of mining rigs online. The AMD crypto mining equipment incorporates Radeon graphics cards, already accessible in the field of mining cryptocurrencies. The company had also pointed out that sales of this type of machine had slowed down, but they have reached an agreement with other manufacturers such as Asus, Saphire or Asrock to design the rigs and integrate the AMD graphics cards.

According to the company, this business area can help make the use of blockchains safer and more efficient by providing the necessary hardware to perform the mathematical and cryptographic calculations required for the mining operation.

“Blockchain algorithms require computing platforms, PCs and servers, more specifically CPUs and GPUs to run. AMD is uniquely positioned to offer the best combination of CPU and GPU technologies to make blockchain transactions faster and more secure,” AMD stated.

AMD ventures into the cryptocurrency mining business with eight new crypto mining rigs

Saphire, Asus, Asrock, MSI, Biostar, Tul, and Rajintek are the companies AMD has partnered with to offer complete crypto mining rigs along with their hardware, the AMD Radeon graphics cards. This new line of business is contrasting with the low level of sales reported by the company just a week ago.

According to the recently released AMD report, the company’s revenues for Q4 2017 were $1.34 billion, adjusted for revenue accounting standard ASC 606, and included GPU sales related to blockchain and crypto mining. According to AMD, this year’s crypto mining rigs’ sales were negligible, in comparison with the company’s other products.

The irruption of ASIC miners, with chips specialized in a specific algorithm and with more capacity and computing power, have caused the decline of this business. The popularity of ASIC miners, together with the many drops of the cryptocurrency market, could have had an impact on the fall of the AMD’s profits from crypto mining rigs. However, new AMD cryptocurrency mining computers are now available to revive this sector for AMD.

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Crypto News

Crypto Mining: Chinese Government Sentenced A Man For Bitcoin (BTC) Mining

On October 8th, a Chinese news portal reported that a man was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and fined 100,000 Yuan (about $14,428) for stealing electricity from a railway company for crypto mining.

According to the portal, the conviction was filed on September 13th by the Datong Rail Transport Court in Shanxi Province in China. According to the source, the man was accused of stealing about the equivalent of 104,000 Yuan (about $15,000) in electricity to power 50 crypto mining equipment and three fans that were active 24 hours a day during November and December last year.

The accused one, named Xu Xinghua, “stole the power of the pole near the Second West Plant of the Kouquan Railway” and during his crypto mining operations, he generated 3.2 Bitcoin (BC), about 120,000 Yuan (roughly $17,300).

The Chinese court also noted that Xinghua will have to pay electricity bills and that its crypto mining equipment will be confiscated. It should be noted that, of the 50 operating equipment, five were damaged during operations.

China is not ok with non-licensed crypto mining

The government of China indicated last July that the non-licensed activities of crypto mining would be closed as of September. On that occasion, they clarified that illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities corresponded to those not registered with government authorities and that required a high unauthorized energy demand, in cases in which they did not have a private electricity service contract.

A month before the announcement, the seizure of more than 200 Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) mining equipment in Anhui province became known. In that case, the owner of the crypto mining equipment had stolen about 150,000 kW per hour for more than a month.

According to sources, 70% of the crypto mining in China is concentrated in a single province, called Sichuan, which suffered flooding last July, affecting operations. This area is attractive for mining because of the abundance of water resources and cheap electricity, low population density, and cold weather.

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Crypto News

BitFury Uses Eco-Friendly Technologies To Cool Down Its Crypto Mining Equipment

Crypto mining equipment manufacturer BitFury is using low environmental impact refrigeration technology to maintain crypto-mining equipment at its mining farm in Tbilisi, Georgia. A report published by Bloomberg relates the experience of this company, which currently immerses Bitcoin (BTC) mining devices in 160 tanks containing a non-conductive liquid to keep them cold while extracting cryptos and contribute to maintaining the state of the network updated.

The system was designed and created by Allied Control Ltd., an engineering company based in Hong Kong, which was acquired by BitFury in 2015. About it, the director of the firm, Valery Vavilov, pointed out that they thought about this type of technology when they realized that the data centers would be used both for Internet searches and to secure Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain.

The Valery Vavilov also announced that BitFury is betting that this technology will have higher demand from cloud computing companies in urban areas. An idea that is supported by the founder of Allied Control, Kar-Wing Lau, who agrees with Vavilov regarding the advantages of the system, adding that the crypto mining farm is visited by bankers and tech companies’ representatives who want to see the system for themselves.

BitFury crypto mining company fight for a cleaner environment

This immersion cooling technology has been on the market for some time and has had several uses. The fluids have been used to cool servers, and have even been used to extinguish race car fires, according to Bloomberg. In this regard, 3M executive Michael Kelly says they are working with ten high-capacity data centers that use immersion cooling.

The system involves locating the hardware in an open liquid coolant tank with a low boiling point. Once the equipment is heated, the fluid boils, and this causes the heat to exit the components. The fluid becomes steam, rises and condenses into a water-cooled coil. Then it returns to the tank. That results in energy savings of 95%, depending on the company’s size, with a minimal fluid loss.

With this system, BitFury lowered the costs related to the crypto mining activity. Regarding the subject, a group of researchers and professors from a technical education institution in Singapore is looking for solutions for the miners of Litecoin (LTC), together with the 3M company.

In this way, these systems are gaining popularity and are likely to replace some of the techniques used by crypto mining farms, which include dipping their miners in oil tanks.

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Crypto News

Iran Legalizes Crypto Mining, Causing Bitcoin (BTC) To Surge To $24,000 on Exir Crypto Exchange

The Iranian government publicly recognized crypto mining as an activity that forms part of the financial industry. The announcements were released on Tuesday, September 4th by Iran’s National Cyberspace Council. Consequently, Bitcoin (BTC) surged to $24,000 on Exir crypto exchange.

The recognition of cryptocurrency mining as a lawful activity in Iran comes from the ministries of Communications and Information Technology, Industry, Mining and Trade, Energy, Economic Affairs and Finance. These institutions, in conjunction with the Central Bank of Iran, are responsible for building the legal framework that will serve to regulate the mining activity in Iran.

Abolhasan Firoozabad, the secretary of the National Council of Cyberspace, said in an interview that the legal framework for crypto mining activity is still under construction and that “no final decisions have been taken,” but they plan to present the bill by September 22nd.

At the moment, no draft has been publicly presented that would allow the growing Iranian Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem to know what the possible measures would be implemented.

Bitcoin (BTC) price surged to $24,000 on Exir thanks to the Iranian government’s acceptance of crypto mining

In April of this year, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) outlawed the use of Bitcoin (BTC) across Iran, considering it to be a tool for money laundering. As a result, the country’s crypto exchange platforms lost the banking support of the national financial institutions.

However, this restriction was limited, but not eliminated, as the exchange of Iranian Real (IRR) for Bitcoin (BTC) is now possible on peer-to-peer platforms such as LocalBitcoins. On the other hand, Exir, another crypto exchange platform, noted that government recognition of crypto mining in Iran triggered the price of Bitcoin (BTC) to surge to about $24,000 (in IRR) on its portal.

Iran’s new decisions regarding the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as the plan on releasing a national crypto token, would function as a mechanism to circumvent the economic sanctions imposed against the country from the United States.

So far, no official information is known about the upcoming Iranian national cryptocurrency, but rumors pointed out to Hyperledger Fabric as the underlying technology for Iran’s token.

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Crypto News Tech

Mozilla Firefox To Block Malicious Crypto Mining With Its Next Update

The next update for the popular Mozilla Firefox Internet browser will add a feature to shield against background crypto mining programs. The Firefox will try putting an end to cryptojacking, a malicious practice that usurps the processing power of the user’s device or hardware to mine for cryptocurrencies.

Firefox will block the scripts inserted into web pages that perform cryptojacking, as the browser’s upcoming update focuses on preventing data collection techniques that violate user privacy, a practice known as tracking. The update will aim to “protect” and “give a voice” to internet users who are victims of “deceptive practices that collect (and use) information invisibly” and user processing power, according to the official statement.

According to Nick Nguyen, the vice president of Firefox, the new security features will be running in the testing phase of the Firefox Nightly version throughout September.

Mozilla Firefox will tackle background crypto mining, joining Opera and Google Chrome in this regard

With this update, Mozilla Firefox joins the Opera and Google Chrome browsers who have already taken steps to tackle background crypto mining programs. In the case of Opera, however, the company announced in January of this year the implementation of new levels of protection against unauthorized mining in its browser.

On the other hand, Google Chrome removed extensions that offer crypto mining services from its Chrome web store. This measure, unlike Opera’s, also affected those applications that informed users that they would use their device’s ability to mine crypto coins. This decision occurred after Chrome accepted these extensions while they were exclusively dedicated to in-browser crypto mining. However, most of these did not meet the conditions.

Keep in mind that web crypto mining is not a malicious activity, in essence. However, cryptojacking (the practice to use victims devices’ computing power to mine for cryptocurrencies) is considered a malicious attack.

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