Crypto Mining is an ever-growing industry that is continuously seeing rapid changes in many aspects. From innovation in technology to increased awareness resulting in more people considering crypto mining as an investment. The updates each week are endless, making it very hard to keep up with the highlights of the industry. Luckily, with this article, you will be able to read about the highlights of the crypto industry and the updates.
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Ledger and Binance
This week saw Binance and Ledger come together to make a very important deal. The collaboration would enable Ledger users to store cryptocurrency through a bitcoin wallet. Ledger allows crypto miners to store private keys offline as a security measure. The hardware wallets can now connect with the digital wallets already in use by Binance users. Ledger enables you to use the ledger live software allowing all users to manage, send and receive cryptocurrency. The tokens or currency can be used with Binance Smart Chain decentralized applications. While also being compatible with the Binance Smart Chain BNB.
The Ledgers can be used to secure cryptocurrency automatically from your Binance wallet. When withdrawing through Binance, the platform allows you to set a target address where your crypto can be safely stored. The partnership between both organizations is a crucial way to safely store and manage cryptocurrency on offline hardware.
Lebanon and cryptocurrency
Lebanon has a struggling economy causing its people to lose trust in banks both private and government-backed. Ultimately, the economy has hit an all-time low. This has led to people putting their trust in cryptocurrency as a way to keep their funds safe and make payments at the same time. The locals are using Tether as a safer way to pay for services or products. Simultaneously, the country has also seen a rapid increase in the use of bitcoin mining equipment. This has resulted in many people investing in hardware, mining their preferred currency, and using it as a way to build wealth.
The problem in Lebanon started in August 2021, the Lebanon Central Bank decided it would no longer offer fuel subsidies. This resulted in a domino effect of first the fuel prices soaring, and then the country plunging into a crisis. Less than a year later, many bank accounts were frozen, which meant that people could no longer access their savings. September 2022 saw the people of Lebanon storming various branches of the bank, holding bank employees hostage, and using violence to forcefully withdraw savings.
After losing approximately 95% of its value, the people of Lebanon have turned to bitcoin and mining as a means of survival. Cryptocurrency and being dependent on mining have allowed the people to be self-sufficient in replacing a failing economic structure with one that they trust. With time a lot of opportunity has presented itself for miners, and business owners that are eager to accept payments in the form of digital assets. It won’t be long before bitcoin exchange in the country becomes a necessity rather than an option.
Hashrate recorded at an all-time high
For those that are aware of how bitcoin mining works, hashrate is a word that you would continuously come across. In the past week, the crypto mining industry saw the hashrate climb to an all-time high. In other words, there are more people than ever mining bitcoin using various different pools. The new hashrate is now at 331EH/s as stated by Glassnode. However, the increase in hashrate is not all good news. There are both pros and cons to the increase in value, and it is up to you to decide whether the news is good or bad.
First of all, the increase in hashrate means that the bitcoin mining industry is much safer. The higher the hashrate is, the lesser the probability of a 51% attack on the network. Despite being realistically impossible, a rough estimate would suggest that in order to disrupt the network, a bad actor would need 1.9 million 166Th miners. This simply translates to the fact that the increase in hashrate increase the overall security of the mining network globally.
The increase in security by the all-time high hashrate comes at a price, which happens to be the cost per bitcoin mined. The increase in hashrate is directly proportional to the increase in the difficulty of the network, which increases the number of bitcoins mined for each unit of energy mined. Simultaneously, the increase in difficulty reduces profits for many large-scale miners which could force them to be behind in payments as well as liquidate their assets, both the mined currency and mining equipment. While being a major issue, the current market trajectory sees an upward trend in all aspects of crypto mining and an increase in investments made into the industry.
Marathon Digital becomes 2nd Largest Bitcoin Holder
The world saw Marathon Digital climb to the 2nd position as the largest bitcoin holder. The company is yet to sell any of the bitcoin that they have mined, while the CEO has expressed that the company is going through a transition period. According to Fred Thiel, the company is looking to grow its operations from 7EH/s to 23 EH/s in less than 8 months. The company had record-breaking productivity in October as it managed to mine a lot more bitcoin. Currently running a major mining rig with 6000 rigs, Marathon Digital has successfully mined approximately 500 BTC in a span of 3 months.
The great thing about the company is that it has taken into account the carbon footprint it is leaving behind due to the increase in mining activity. The company was previously based in Montana, where the mining was purely dependent on coal energy. However, recent actions of the company have involved a mix of renewable energy to be used as an alternative. While the mining rigs do not depend entirely on renewable energy, there are plans to continue increasing dependency on renewable energy.
Many people have raised concerns about the rapid expansion of Marathon Digital. The reason has been the reported fall in earnings when compared with the previous year’s quarter and year turnover. But the company believes that it is on the right track. The CEO was quoted expressing “We believe Marathon has a strong foundation. This foundation is buoyed by reserves of 11,300 BTC, making Marathon the “second largest holder among publicly traded companies.” In addition, it was also revealed that there was no liquidation of any digital asset by the company.
In addition, the CEO also continued to explain in an interview that this is the best time to mine Bitcoin. He said that brighter days for the digital asset are ahead. It is a thought that many future bitcoin investors will think long and hard about mining. While many will be looking to set up Bitcoin Mining in Dubai, or similar government friendly regions.
Conclusion
The world of cryptocurrency continues to introduce numerous changes each day. Being a fairly young industry there is always something happening which has the potential to drastically affect the industry entirely. From entire economies running on digital assets to people believing in the crypto industry more than a government-backed economy. It only goes to show the future of digital currency for people all over the world.
Experts continue to emphasize the bright future of crypto mining. However, only time will tell the true future of the crypto industry space.