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Fresh Drive Above $60K Reignites Bitcoin Mining And Its Environmental Impact Debate

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Bitcoin mining energy consumption debate is on the table yet again.

Bitcoin’s reign above $60K has reinvigorated debates surrounding negative environmental impact. Concerns regarding mining the cryptocurrency being harmful to the environment because it utilizes substantial energy have made rounds as experts continued to weigh in the matter.

The latest one to chime in the matter that has been making rounds was Bixin Group’s Mustafa Yilham. Bixin currently manages nearly 2.5% of the total global Bitcoin network through its mining operation. Yilham opined that a Bitcoin miner tries to use renewable excessive energy because they are environmentally friendly and cheaper.

He elaborated his first statement by explaining the migratory nature of Chinese miners wherein mining operations are mostly based in Sichuan. In winter, on the other hand, Bitcoin mining operations are moved to Xinjiang/Inner Mongolia where reportedly 43.4% of the energy on its electricity grid is renewable. During the rainy season, Sichuan produces “excessive hydro-power”. He Yiham concluded that,

“Bitcoin is probably one of the MOST Environmentally-friendly financial industries. Because we can migrate during seasons and maintain 100% renewable during summer and over 40% renewable during winter. The renewable rate will further increase soon.”

Bitcoin Mining and Gas-flare Recapturing

Bitcoin mining is also helping resolve gas-flare issues. Here’s how:

Gas flaring has been a concerning issue to the oil and gas industry. A combustion of associated gas is flared into the air which is generated during the processing of natural gas. This byproduct can be captured by the Bitcoin who can then use it for energy instead of releasing it into the open door.

This is not the first time that Bitcoin’s strikingly high carbon footprint has been a matter of debate. By its very nature, Bitcoin mining needs a lot of electricity along with sophisticated devices. However, with regards to energy consumption, ARK Investment Management revealed that traditional banking consumed 2.34 billion gigajoules (GJ) per year while gold mining 500 million GJ. Bitcoin, on the other hand, consumes 184 million GJ, less than 10% and 40% of traditional banking and gold mining, respectively.

Further debunking the misperceptions, ARK’s research stated,

“Additionally, Bitcoin mining’s estimated dollar cost per GJ expended is 40 times more efficient than that of traditional banking and 10 times more efficient than that of gold mining.”

Bitcoin Mining Farm Accused Of Carrying Out The Biggest Electricity Theft In Bulgaria

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Bitcoin has become one of the most valuable assets over time. From 10,000 Bitcoins being worth merely two Papa John’s pizzas, to a whopping $19K, the king coin has come a long way. While this industry got more attractive, the Bitcoin mining rewards started luring in several who intended to make a profit through the crypto industry. Bitcoin mining isn’t an easy job, it requires an immense amount of electricity. This factor remains unfavourable for many and hence they resort to illegal means to garner electricity to mine the king coin.

Bitcoin Mining Behind The Biggest Electricity Theft

Even though the Bitcoin miner rewards have depreciated with every halving, the value of the asset has surged. With Bitcoin currently priced at $19,251, every miner gets a reward of 6.25 BTC following the recent halving that took place in May 2020. While this is a profitable method of pocketing the money, the mining process eats a ton of electricity. Recent news from Bulgaria revealed that a village called Herakovo was stealing electricity from the CEZ Group, an electricity exporter in Europe.

The CEZ Group went on to find out that a crypto mining farm in the village was operating over 1,000 ASIC miners. The farm duped the electricity exporter by illegally connecting to a medium voltage network. This theft of electricity was touted as the biggest of its kind in Bulgaria as a whopping 4,250 families could live off the electricity that the mining farm had illegally used for an entire month.

Bitcoin

This isn’t the first time Bulgaria is seen taking a drive on the bad side of the crypto-verse. The country has time and again been subject to several crimes pertaining to electricity theft to execute Bitcoin mining. More recently, two residents of the country were nabbed by Bulgarian law enforcement for stealing electricity worth about $1.5 million for mining the king coin.

While the police managed to seize the biggest electricity theft in Bulgaria, the CEZ Group took a while to discover the treachery. Nevertheless, the electricity exporter suggested that it went on to recognize the loss and the location of the preparators.

 

Square To Battle Climate Change; $10M Allocated For Firms That Aid Greener Bitcoin Mining

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Prominent cryptocurrency platform, Square has been making headlines following an array of developments. Jack Dorsey’s interest in crypto was transformed into reality with notable payments platform, Square. Once again, Dorsey’s Square platform had made it to the headlines following its recent development in the field of crypto.

Square To Aid War Against Climate Change

CEO and Founder of prominent social media platform, Twitter, Jack Dorsey seems to be embracing his philanthropic side. Recently, Square rolled out a non-profit crypto platform, Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance [COPA] that stops firms from hiding away their crypto innovations in patents. Now, Square seems to be taking an interest in the battle against climate change.

While everyone across the globe has been fighting climate change, Square has revealed in a recent blog post that this will soon be part of this engagement. The blog post pointed out that Square was rolling out the “Bitcoin Clean Energy Investment Initiative”. With this initiative, the platform hopes to offer aid to firms that fuel the adoption as well as the effectiveness of renewables across the Bitcoin sphere. To carry this initiative out in full force, Square had reportedly joined hands with a prominent platform that has been fending off climate change, Watershed.

Square has allocated a total of $10 million as part of the initiative. Speaking about the same, Jack Dorsey said,

“We believe that cryptocurrency will eventually be powered completely by clean power, eliminating its carbon footprint and driving adoption of renewables globally.”

The payments giant is aiming at achieving a net-zero carbon target. This would further be accomplished by depreciating the carbon footprint along with the scaling of a verified carbon removal portfolio. This portfolio will be rolled out into the market in the Q1 of 2021.

The initiative is said to extend support to platforms that incorporate green energy tech into their Bitcoin mining protocols. Additionally, the stimulation of clean power is also one of the goals of the initiative. With all of the aforementioned, Square with its Scope 3 emissions intends to transform into a net-zero carbon for operations by 2030.

Dorsey added,

“Published estimates indicate bitcoin already consumes a significant amount of clean energy, and we hope that Square’s investment initiative will accelerate this conversion to renewable energy.”

Bitcoin Mining Revenue Blasts Past $21 Million

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The Bitcoin bull run has not only been profitable for the retail traders and high-net investors but also for the miners of the network as well. In yet another major development, Bitcoin mining revenue has climbed all the way to a whopping $21  million per day. With this, the revenue figure has reached its highest level this year.

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The last time, revenue for the Bitcoin miners reached this level was back in September 2018 when Bitcoin was trading above $10K. Blockchain.com tracked the total value of Coinbase block rewards and transaction fees paid to miners and found the daily revenue figure, which includes block rewards and transaction fees, reach a record high,

To top that, the data from the crypto analytics platform, Glassnode, indicated that revenue figures appeared to have also crossed the pre-halving levels. Before the halving event in mid-May 2020, Bitcoin’s price was near $9,000. Six months later, the cryptocurrency shot up to $18,000. This was indicative of the correlation as miners need to sell enough of the coins to cover the costs of mining while simultaneously maintaining a profit. With the price reaching highs prices mean greater profits.

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Bitcoin’s Capitulation Scares

After a gradual rise at the beginning of the year, Bitcoin had trimmed substantial gains in a sudden sell-off sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing global tension. During this time, several theories of miner capitulation emerged as the impact of downward price action on miner operations, signaled that more miners were capitulating during Black Thursday.

Miner’s profit margins rely on the current market value of the cryptocurrency as well as the current cost of energy and other operational expenditures. Hence, The higher the price of Bitcoin and the lower the operating expenses, the better the margins and, therefore, the more profitable the business is.

As the market collapsed, Bitcoin’s price fell so low as it broke under $4,000 abruptly, that it immediately began causing miners in the network to capitulate in the days following.

Outdated Mining Rigs Back On

Amidst the ongoing bull run, several old and outdated ASIC mining rigs started to become profitable yet gain.  Miners China had reportedly resumed utilizing their old mining equipment manufactured by industry against such as Canaan, Bitmain, and others. These have found outdated rigs include the Antminer S9 (10-16 TH/s) which have once again started to procure profits.

Iran’s Licensed Cryptocurrency Miners To Aid Imports

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Gone are the days when cryptocurrencies and especially Bitcoin was viewed as a mere darknet currency. The world seems to have realized the value of these assets and have become more accepting of the same. The Iranian government seems to be the latest country to exhibit its keenness towards crypto.

Bitcoin Miners To Facilitate Imports

The country’s Iranian Students’ News Agency [ISNA] recently reported that a new set of regulations pertaining to crypto were put into place in Iran. Individuals who engage in Bitcoin mining were required to fund imports. The central bank of the country would be taking over the operations of receiving and converting crypto in order to aid the imports of the country.

All the miners that are legally registered in the country were to abide by the latest regulation. Both the Central Bank of Iran [CBI] along with the Ministry of Energy had put forth this idea. As per the latest law, the miners of the Middle Eastern country would be obligated to sell the mined tokens to Iran’s central bank.

Furthermore, a limit is set for the mining processes. The report highlighted that the government would take into account the amount of subsidized energy used by a miner along with several other factors. An elaborate document on the instructions pertaining to this would shortly be presented by the Ministry of Energy.

Iran came out as a crypto-friendly country last year after its government legalized mining. Yet, certain laws proposed by the country makes it a rather tumultuous region to trade crypto.

Additionally, the fact that economically repressed countries steer towards crypto has been surfing the industry. Countries like Venezuela have been affirming the same by widely adopting crypto. Iran’s economy took a hard hit after the United States imposed sanctions on the country. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted almost every market all over the globe, Iran wasn’t spared either. The latest inclination towards crypto could have been stimulated by the distress in Iran’s economy as well as the ever-rising value of the crypto industry.

Huge Bitcoin Hash Rate In China In Jeopardy After Local Authorities Increase Electricity Tariffs For Mining By 33%

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Bitcoin miners in Inner Mongolia can no longer enjoy subsidized electricity rates for their crypto-mining operations, according to chinese news outlet Weixin. The authorities insist that mining companies have not directly benefited the wider Mongolian regions and local government. And now a large number of Chinese miners operating within the border of Inner Mongolia, electricity charges may rise by 33 percent.

This action comes as a blow to Bitcoin miners as around 60 percent of the world’s mining operations are based in China. In addition to some large-scale companies, such as AntPool, which are known for the high-income revenues they generate each year, they are based in the region in question.

China’s colossal Bitcoin hash rate share to drop following the move by local authorities

China controls a vast 60% hash rate on all Bitcoin mining operations in the world but all that is about to change following increased electricity tariffs policy in the Mongolia region. For a long time, the northern part of China has enjoyed favourable conditions conducive for bitcoin mining such as cool climate, cheap labour and subsidized electricity rates.

Bigwig firms like AntPool along with other miners based in Mongolia are likely to be affected negatively, thus resulting in decreased profits generated from mining operations. According to reports, at least 21 mining farms will be affected directly. However, it is worth noting that not all firms have been affected by the authorities’ move.

China inner Mongolia authorities issued the ‘surprise’ notice on 24 Aug 2020. Colin Wu, a famous Chinese reporter who mostly focuses on mining and industry regulations reports, also confirmed the news on his official twitter page.

Crypto mining enthusiasts fear that more regions will follow the policy of the Mongolian authorities

Bitcoin Miners in China are now worried that increased electricity rates directive in Mongolia will now be imposed on other different regions in the country. Xinjiang region is more precisely tipped to be next to offer the instructions after Mongolia.A lot of mining operations will also take a hit in terms of profits generated as the rest of the world now enjoys a more level playing field.

Bitcoin Hash Rate Declines by Nearly 20% Following Heavy Downpour in China 

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Bitcoin hash rate declined by over 25 percent as of August 18, following severe landslides caused by the torrential downpour in China’s Sichuan province. The heavy rains caused Sichuan province to spark off a level 1 response, the topmost in its four-tier emergency response levels.

Bitcoin mining activities seemed to be running smoothly after bitcoin successfully broke past the $12,000 level. Notably, the cheap electric power available in Sichuan province during the hydro-season and the price of BTC had triggered an average milestone hash rate of 129 EH/s beginning August 15.

Bitcoin Hashrate Declines

Bitcoin hash rate drop to affect mining difficulty

Nevertheless, the latest developments in Sichuan province on top of the number of BTC miners based in the area, a decline in bitcoin hash rate is not a surprise. Consequently, the hash rate fell from 140 EH/s to 105 EH/s.

The largest mining pool saw a massive 20 percent decline from 20 EH/s to 16EH/s. Furthermore, F2Pool and the other top five Bitcoin mining pools also saw a drop within the range of 20-25 percent.

The drop in bitcoin hash rate will affect bitcoin’s mining difficulty, which was favorably corrected with a 0.59 percent rise. On average, mining difficulty adjustment has remained positive since June 16. Nevertheless, the decline in Bitcoin hash rate as a result of the torrential downpour might soon result in a negative difficulty adjustment.

The latest hash rate decline is the third significant drop throughout 2020, with the initial drop seen back in March when the cryptocurrency market dropped massively. The second decline happened during bitcoin’s block halving event.

BTC price overview

Bitcoin bulls successfully managed to push the price past the $12,000 price level after struggling for almost three weeks. Yesterday, BTC price surged from the lows of $11,800 before reaching its new high of $12,450. Although the cryptocurrency has retraced back to about $12,220 at press time, it finally managed to breach $12,000.

Bitcoin Hash Rate Hits a New Milestone as the Crypto Struggles to Break Past $12,000: A Bullish Rally Incoming?

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Bitcoin has been having difficulty breaking past $12,000 for about three weeks now since it broke past $10,000 on July 27. Could an enhanced bitcoin hashrate signal increase the price?

Although the crypto has been struggling to surpass $12,000, the pressure building below this level continues to accumulate, with the seven-day average bitcoin hash rate hitting a new all-time high.

According to data by Blockchain.com, bitcoin’s seven-day average hash rate reached 129.075 TeraHash/second (TH/s), surpassing the previous all-time high of 126.91 TH/s reached on July 29.

Bitcoin Hash Rate

Increased bitcoin hash rate could signal an imminent bullish rally

Notably, hash rate refers to an estimate of the magnitude of computing power being utilized on a blockchain at a particular time. Although there is no direct connection between the computing power and the price of a cryptocurrency, some experts consider that an elevated hash rate signals an imminent appreciation in the value of bitcoin.

Simply, an elevated bitcoin hash rate indicates an entrance of new bitcoin miners or addition of new mining rigs to the bitcoin network. The entry of new miners or the addition of more equipment into the network shows that miners are confident in making profits at least. 

Furthermore, higher computing power could also spell that the available miners are more confident in the profitability of the crypto. That is to say, the individuals or organizations investing their resources to put hash power on the network; are of the belief that their efforts will be rewarded, hence they continue to invest more.

Bitcoin price overview

The price of bitcoin surged past $12,000 on two occasions this month, failing to maintain and dropping back below. The BTC price action has constantly faced resistance at $12,000, resting between  $11,700-$11,900 during the weekend. 

Bitcoin price

Bitcoin has started the week at the higher end of its price range, closer to the $12,000 mark. The $12,000 price level has caused traders problems for the past couple of weeks as it refuses to turn into support. Furthermore, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, indicates increased greed among investors. On August 17, the index sits just three points shy it’s all-time high of  87/100 from June 2019. 

Bitcoin Slips Below $11,300 But Majority of Bitcoin Miners Remain Profitable

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Bitcoin’s price position in April 2020 was extremely critical. With the price hovering just under $7700-$8000, the main concern for several analysts was the capitulation of miners following the halving event. On 11th May, the block rewards of miners were cut short to 6.25 BTC per block and many expected BTC  to witness a bearish pullback after the halving. Mao Shixing, Co-founder of F2 Pool had stated,

“If the price of Bitcoin maintains at the current range of $6,000 to $7,000, more machines will inevitably be shut down after the halving. The March 12 crash has already caused a number of machines to shut down. But we may still try to improve their efficiency and reduce their costs.”

Luckily for Bitcoin, the rally over the past couple of months has been extremely fruitful as the digital asset recently went to register new year-highs.

With the price improving in the charts, miner profitability was on a high as well.

As revealed by Charles Edwards of capriole.io, Bitcoin production cost of electricity at the moment could be countered with BTC’s value at $7250 whereas Bitcoin was currently value way above, between $11,000 and $12,000.

However, despite mining being more profitable, according to recent data from Glassnode, miners seem to be getting a little anxious with the instability indicated by Bitcoin.

glassnode studio bitcoin transfer volume from miners to exchanges all exchanges 7 d moving average

As illustrated in the above chart, Bitcoin miner’s transfer volume from miner’s address to exchange address is steadily rising after dropping down to a new low back in June 2020. The transfer of volume from miner’s addresses to exchange indicated that some miners were possibly cashing out on their profits, hence necessarily conducting a certain level of capitulation. The 7-day moving average volume has almost doubled in the past couple of months, increasing from 170 BTC in June 2020 to 310 BTC on 11th August 2020.

It can be speculated that the current volatility pictured by Bitcoin is leading towards this uncertain stance of miners. If BTC does not surge anymore this year, cashing out at the top of a bullish rally is a logical step for most of the miners.

glassnode studio bitcoin net transfer volume from to miners all miners 7 d moving average

However, it is also worth taking note that that net volume between capital inflows and outflows in miner addresses remains in the green that means BTC coming into miners’ address is still more than BTC going out.

Hence, at the moment only a minority of miners might be going out of business while a majority of them continued to incurred more incoming Bitcoin volumes.

Chinese Monsoon Season Floods Threatening Bitcoin Miners, Three Gorges Dam on “Verge of Crashing?”

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The massive floods in China during this year’s monsoon season have caught the attention of the cryptocurrency industry. Crypto enthusiasts are now worried about the impact of the acute flooding on the large number of Bitcoin miners situated in Sichuan province. Notably, the floods have ousted millions of Chinese hence the growing concerns by the crypto industry.

In particular, the Chinese province of Sichuan situated upwards the giant Three Gorges Dam, the largest dam in the world, by a long way. The monsoon season has massively devastated the region for the past two months. As per reports, the monsoon season floods have displaced approximately 744,000 Chinese residents from about 26 different provinces. Furthermore, about 5 million Chinese residents have been directly impacted by the intense floods, and approximately 41,000 homes have crashed down.

50% of the world’s Bitcoin miners are based in China

A significant percentage of Chinese Bitcoin miners are located in the province of Sichuan and around 50% of the world’s Bitcoin miners are based in China. Back in 2019, a study by Coinshares reported that the concentration in China was almost 6%. In addition, a recent Bitooda report claims that 50 percent of the global hashrate is accounted for by Chinese Bitcoin miners.

The rain season in China reportedly destroys bitcoin mining farms annually for the last couple of years. The main danger facing Sichuan Bitcoin miners is the proximity of mining facilities to the renowned Three Gorges Dam. A massive amount of people in the country are worried about the architectural sturdiness of the infamous dam during the 2020 monsoon season.

World’s largest dam facing a massive test, collapse imminent?

As per the Changjiang Ministry of Water Resources, two dams, the massive Three Gorges Dam, and Gezhou Dam; both stalled approximately 30 billion cubic meters of rainwater over the past one month. Some believe that the 2020 monsoon season is putting the world’s largest dam under intense tests. In June, banished Chinese whistleblower, Miles Guo, stated that the dazzling engineering marvel, Three Gorges Dam, might collapse.