CRYPTO LEADERS ARE TURNING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES

While the cryptocurrency market is navigating through several obstacles, from the crackdown in China to worries about its impact on the climate, there is a clear growth in support. Just in the last several months, El Salvador become the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, a move that could potentially start a trend across Latin American countries. Shortly thereafter, leaders in Argentina, Brazil, Panama, and Paraguay also endorsed the move on social media.

Earlier in the year, several major companies announced a more open-minded approach to Bitcoin, now accepting payment for product and services. Overall, the approach of financial institutions, businesses and even governments has significantly changed in recent years, as commercial payments are slowly warming up to the prospects of Bitcoin.

One of the major reasons for this is that a Bitcoin payment is faster, cheaper, safer and less volatile than the local currencies in many countries. Nevertheless, the environmental concern is legitimate, as Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies require large amounts of energy to operate, due to the computations needed for mining.

By the latest estimates, the Bitcoin network uses as much energy in one year as the country of Argentina. Yet, some companies in the crypto and blockchain market have taken steps to improve the situation. For example, Manhattan Solar Partners, LLC, a joint venture between BIT5IVE, LLC and GMine LLC, recently announced plans to build crypto data centers utilizing over a gigawatt of renewable energy in Texas.

ISW Holdings Inc. announced last month the, "signing of a cryptocurrency mining hosting agreement with Bitmain Technologies, the world's leading producer of cryptocurrency mining hardware and a leading global cryptocurrency mining firm.

Irene Gao, Antminer BD Director NCSA Region, Bitmain, said, "We are excited to have signed this new pioneering project to begin cooperation with ISW Holdings, a new milestone for the industry for creating hosting facilities overseas. The 200 MW facility is the first phase of our long-term partnership, utilizing renewable energy as its source. We expect to further expand this project into the future to support the development of the industry."

"Bitmain is probably the most recognizable name in the mining space, and we are excited that they will be a major piece of our success in Georgia," remarked Alonzo Pierce, ISW Holdings president and chairman. "Once our 200 MW power tranche is fully utilized, we anticipate annualized revenues of over $200 million, but that will only close the first phase of our vision. We look forward to discussing our next phases in due course. If we are able to execute according to our full vision, we have the potential to drive exponential revenue growth ahead."

Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. reported earlier it had produced 226.6 new minted bitcoins during May 2021, increasing total bitcoin holdings to approximately 5,518 with a fair market value of approximately $203.4 million. "In May, we produced 226.6 bitcoins, which is a 40% increase from the 162.1 bitcoins we produced in April, and we increased our hashrate to 1.9 EH/s after installing another 5,571 miners," said Fred Thiel, Marathon's CEO. "As a result, we were producing nearly 10 bitcoins per day on average at the end of the month. Given our current delivery schedule and the macro events affecting the global network hashrate, Marathon is particularly well positioned to scale and thrive in the current mining environment. Delivery and installation of new miners continue to progress well, and we remain on track to meet our objectives of transitioning our operations to 70% carbon neutral and having all our previously purchased miners online by the end of Q1, 2022."

Sphere 3D Corp. announced its planned Merger with Gryphon Digital Mining Inc., a privately-held company focused on the mining of bitcoin using renewable energy. The merged company will focus on expanding Gryphon's digital mining operations and utilize Sphere 3D's proprietary enterprise solutions to optimize Gryphon's processes.

"Gryphon's future focus on mining using 100% renewable energy will set the bar for mining companies of the future. We have been engineering GPU-based converged systems for many years and are excited to leverage our experience to enhance the performance of Gryphon's operations. We believe the merger of the two companies provides an excellent opportunity to create meaningful value for our shareholders," said Sphere 3D's CEO, Peter Tassiopoulos.

SOS Limited also reported that it has entered into a joint venture with Niagara Development LLC, a New Jersey based company, for a joint venture to be based in Niagara, Wisconsin. The venture is expected to carry out crypto-currency mining operations and construct an international standard Digital Super Computing Custody Operation Center. Niagara will be responsible for providing up to 150MW of electricity, including electricity from renewable sources, and the construction of the Digital Super Computing Custody Operation Center. SOS will be responsible for the management, operations and financing of the joint venture.

Bit Digital, Inc. and Digihost Tech announced a strategic co-mining agreement. This collaboration is expected to facilitate an increase in hashrate of approximately 2 EH between the companies.

Source: www.FinancialBuzz.com