Tether chose Uruguay to mining cryptocurrency. Review by Crypto Upvotes experts

Tether has decided to get into Bitcoin mining and announced. It is investing in green power generation and launching bitcoin mining in Uruguay. As part of the project, the issuer of the leading stabelcoin USDT is partnering with a local licensed company.

Tether has thus expanded its scope to include energy and mining. The report states that the company’s goal is. It is to become a global technology leader and this investment demonstrates Tether’s “commitment to innovation in energy and the future of cryptocurrency.”

The Tether noted that it chose Uruguay, which is rich in natural resources. Because the country offers ideal conditions for renewable energy production. These are the creation of wind farms, solar parks and hydropower projects. 94% of the country’s electricity production comes from renewable energy sources. And that makes it a world leader in this area.

Our experts note that the USDT token issued by Tether has remained the largest stablecoin by market capitalization for many years. And third among all cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Marathon Digital and Zero Two plan to launch two cryptocurrency mining platforms in Abu Dhabi this year at a total cost of $406 million

One of the largest U.S. miners, Marathon Digital, and developer Zero Two announced the creation of bitcoin mining platforms in Abu Dhabi (UAE). According to a press release, the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) joint venture will begin building two mining centers under equipment with a total capacity of 250 MW.

Also Marathon Digital is one of the largest U.S. public companies. Which is engaged in cryptocurrency mining. It has tens of thousands of mining devices in Texas, North Dakota. And other states.  according to BitcoinTreasuries, the company ranks second behind Microstrategy in terms of Bitcoin ownership. It owns 12,200 BTC ($335.5 million).

Also Abu Dhabi-based Zero Two develops Web3 infrastructure solutions and digital assets in the emirate.

The site for 200 MW of mining equipment will be located in the “eco-city” Masdar. Another 50 MW platform will be built in the port area of Mina Zayed. Electricity will be supplied to the complex from the general power grid of Abu Dhabi.

Marathon’s share in ADGM will be 20%, Zero Two’s share – 80%. Capital investment by the companies in proportion to their shares will be about $406 million. The digital assets extracted will also be distributed according to each company’s shares twice a month.

The companies have developed a special immersion solution for ASIC-mainer cooling (liquid cooling) to operate the equipment in the desert climate. And they implemented new software for performance optimization. The new solutions were successfully tested during the pilot project.

It is expected that the mining centers will be launched by the end of 2023, their total hashing speed. Also according to the companies’ calculations, will reach 7 EH/s. Our experts note that according to BTC.com, the total global Bitcoin network hash rate as of May 10 is about 337 EH/s.

Hive Blockchain reported financial results for the last three months of 2022. It said it received 51.6% less profit from cryptocurrency mining in that period than it did a year earlier

The Ethereum blockchain’s transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm was one of the reasons for a $90 million loss at major miner Hive Blockchain for the fourth quarter of 2022. The company released its financial results for the last three months of last year. In doing so, it noted that in addition to September’s Ethereum update, the losses were also contributed to the decline in the price of digital assets. As well as on mining equipment at the end of last year.

Our experts note that this report shows that the miner generated $14.1 million in cryptocurrency mining revenue during that period, down 51.6 percent from a year earlier. And the gross profit earned by Hive from mining in the fourth quarter of last year was $3.6 million, down 77% from $15.9 million in the previous quarter.

According to Miner, the average mining cost per Bitcoin in the last three months of 2022 was $13,600. While the average Bitcoin price during that time was $18k. This increased BTC production costs by 37% over the previous quarter. The company revalued its mining equipment, which also led to a $38.8 million loss on Hive’s balance sheet.

Additional reasons for losses

In addition to the “Merger” and the strong decline in cryptocurrency prices from the end of 2021. Hive’s revenue was also driven by a significant increase in global Bitcoin hashrate and an annual increase in mining complexity of 60%, to nearly 40T.

At the same time, the company noted that it mined 787 BTC during this period. And this is 13% more than in the same period of 2021, when 697 Bitcoins were mined. According to the Hive team, this reflects continued growth in its operating hashrate.

Hive also reported that the fleet of GPUs formerly used to mine Ethereum is not currently idle. And it’s generating an average annual revenue of more than $1 million by being busy with computational workloads unrelated to mining digital assets.

Our experts explained how a private miner managed to get a reward for the found block. With hardly noticeable computing power he was able to get 6 BTC

A lucky private miner, with barely a fraction of the processing power in the Bitcoin network. He received a reward of 6.35 BTC for finding a block numbered 772,793.

The chances of adding a block as a single miner are determined by the number of hashes. Which the miner device calculates per second. Relative to the total number of hashes that all the machines on the network compute each second.

Typically, blocks are mined by large pools combining the power of thousands of devices participating in a pool of users. The largest of them are Foundry, AntPool and Exchange of Binance’s own pool.

At the time the block was added to blockchain, the total bitcoin hashrate was just over 269 EH/s. That is, a single miner’s hash rate of 10 TH/s was only 0.000000037% of the total computing power of that network.

Chance of getting such a reward is like a big win in a lottery

Our experts say that this is an extremely atypical case. One miner privately can work for 30 years and not pick up the right hash during this time. At the same time he will consume electricity and produce a resource of equipment. The risks of finding nothing and making a loss are much greater.

It’s like buying a lottery ticket. You can buy one ticket every day and not get a win. Or you can buy one single time and win, but the chances are slim. If you approach mining as a business, it is more pragmatic to get a more modest but guaranteed income every day.

Now hashrate of network is 283 million TH/s against 10,6 TH/s capacity of unknown miner. In theory, with such parameters of the equipment it should mine one block out of almost 27 thousand mined blocks. Considering that about 900 BTC are mined per day, that’s about one block in 81 years.

Solo mining can be used when mining new coins, where the network capacity is quite low. And one person’s equipment takes a noticeable share of the entire processing power of the network. With pools, the probability of receiving remuneration increases many times over. But the user receives only a share of the reward, proportionally calculated from the entire computing power of the pool.

Bitcointalk forum users, discussing the lucky miner. came to the conclusion that his setup consisted of four rudimentary USB miners, each of which produced no more than 3 TH/s and cost about $200.

Our experts congratulate this guy, but remind us that it was a lucky lottery ticket.

BitMining claims that the presented Litecoin and Dogecoin mining device will be more profitable than its predecessors. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Shares of BitMining (BTCM) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rose 106% – from $2.11 to $4.36 per share. After the company announced the release of new LD3 mining devices on Twitter on Jan. 10.

On January 17, BitMining equipment manufacturer announced in its blog that the production of these devices has begun. They will be used to mine Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) cryptocurrencies. A total of 5 thousand machines were produced. And some of them are intended for internal use, while others are for sale.

The LD3, which has a capacity of 3.5 kW, will be more profitable than its predecessors. At the same time consuming energy more efficiently, BitMining claims. This is the second ASIC miner (mining device) that the company has developed since acquiring hardware maker Bee Computing last year. The first was the Ethereum Classic (ETC) cryptocurrency mining device last August.

Our experts remind us that BitMining business includes cryptocurrency mining. And managing data centers and manufacturing equipment. The company also owns a large mining pool, BTC.com. Which was hacked late last year. As a result of the hacker attack, the attackers managed to withdraw about $700,000 worth of crypto-assets belonging to customers from this pool. They also stole $2.3 million in cryptocurrency from their own project wallets.

Growth in securities of mining companies in January reached the highest monthly level in at least a year. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

The MVIS Global Digital Assets Mining Index, which includes data on the 20 largest miners. Such as Riot Blockchain, Galaxy Digital, Bitfarms and Iris Energy, is up 64 percent since the beginning of January 2023. This month, the indicator posted its biggest increase since its inception in December 2021. In doing so, Bitfarms securities rose more than 140%. And shares of Marathon Digital Holdings were up more than 120%. And Hive Blockchain Technologies more than doubled.

The growth of miners’ shares was caused by the recovery of Bitcoin. The first cryptocurrency since the beginning of January rose in price by 26.5% – from $ 16.6 thousand to $ 21 thousand. And on January 16 Bitcoin rate updated its maximum for 4 months, exceeding the mark of $ 21.4 thousand.

Profits of miners also increased against the growth of the crypto market. Despite the fact that the complexity of Bitcoin mining has grown to record levels. And more and more miners are plugging in, increasing hash rates. Luxor Hashprice Index – showing how much income a Bitcoin miner can expect. With a certain amount of hashrate – up 21% this year.

However, our experts note that it is unknown how long the growth of mining companies’ quotes will last. Cryptocurrency mining companies faced financial difficulties in 2022 and were forced to sell the mined cryptocurrency. As well as to return the equipment, reduce costs and personnel.

Satoshi Nakamoto mined a Bitcoin genesis block on January 3, 2009

Bitcoin turned 14 years old. January 3, 2009 can be considered the real birthday of Bitcoin. That’s when the genesis block was mined with the date and a short excerpt from The Times article: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”.

On October 31, 2008, the creator of Bitcoin, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, published a white paper. Titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. However, the BTC network did not actually work until three months later, when Satoshi mined the first block.

The genesis block was mined on a small server in Helsinki. The reward for mining it was 50 BTC. The first transaction on the BTC network took place a few days later. On January 12, 2009, 10 BTC from Satoshi Nakamoto were sent to developer Hal Finney in Block 170.

Nine months later, on October 5, Bitcoin appeared on the New Liberty Standart exchange. Our experts note that for $ 1 you could buy 1,309 BTC (now their price is $21 million).

On February 9, 2011, BTC for the first time equaled in value to the U.S. dollar. And on April 16 of the same year a major publication – Time magazine published an article about Bitcoin, for the first time about the new asset. The currency reached a total capitalization of $10 million.

Since then, Bitcoin has experienced several ups and downs. It reached its peak in November 2021, rising to $69,000. In 2022, global economic problems and several major bankruptcies in the industry led to a significant decline in cryptocurrency rates and a prolonged crypto winter.

The asset currently has a market capitalization of $322 billion and a daily trading volume of $13 billion. Bitcoin’s stake in a crypto market is 38.2%.

Computing power of BTC mining equipment also began to decline. In addition to profits of miners, hashrate of network fell by 13% during one month

Bitcoin mining profits have fallen to their lowest in two years, with BTC mining profits totaling $11.6 million on Nov. 26, according to Blockchain.com. Miners last earned less than this amount on November 2, 2020, on that day they received $10.9 million at a BTC exchange rate of about $13,700.

Falling profits for miners come amid the steepest decline in bitcoin since 2018. On November 28, BTC is trading near $16,200, down 76.5% from its all-time high.

In the last 24 hours, 131 blocks of Bitcoin were mined, the reward of miners at the current rate was $13.2 million. Most of the blocks (34 units) were mined by miners connected to the Foundry USA pool. AntPool (25) and Binance (19) followed by F2pool (16) and ViaBTC (12).

Bitcoin network hashrate (the total capacity of all mining equipment connected to the network) declined. On November 2, it peaked at 273 Eh/s and fell by 13% to 237 Eh/s during the month. Decrease in computing power means that some of equipment was switched off by miners.

In addition to falling BTC price, a negative factor for mining cryptocurrency was also an increase in the complexity of its mining. On November 21, this indicator renewed its all-time high and rose to a record 36.95 T. Our experts note that next change in mining complexity should occur around December 5.

Hidden mining threat (CryptoJacking) reached a record level in first half of 2022: number of detected attacks raised to 66.7 million, 30% more than in first six months of 2021

Hidden mining or CryptoJacking is a cybercrime. It involves unauthorized use of devices (computers, smartphones, tablets or servers) by hackers to mine cryptocurrency. Hidden mining is often done through security exploits in mobile apps. As well as web browsers and goes unnoticed by victims.

Cyber security company SonicWall recorded 45.1 million attacks in the first quarter. This is their highest number in their history of monitoring. However, in Q2 there were half as many cases – 21.6 million. According to a study, falling prices for cryptocurrencies may be a reason for this. According to experts’ forecast, the “summer recession of CryptoJacking” will continue in Q3 of this year. But attacks will peak again in Q4.

What drives growth of hidden mining and why it is dangerous

Two factors are responsible for general growth in the number of hidden mining incidents. First factor is a critical vulnerability in the Log4j Java library. It was found in 2021. It allows hackers to gain unauthorized access to hundreds of users’ apps remotely around world. In addition, Hidden Mining is an attack with less risk for scammers. Than extortion, because victims of scammers often do not know that their computers or networks are being used. As a result, cybercriminals have less chance of being detected. Normal users see their devices running slower. But it’s hard to connect this to criminal activity.

At least one extortion group has already publicly announced its intentions to switch to hidden mining. And if they do, it won’t be the first time cryptojacking has replaced extortion software.

The number of attacks on government, health care, and education sectors decreased by 78%, 87%, and 96%, respectively. However, cases of hidden mining in financial industry increased by 269%, and in retail by 63%.

Earlier, FBI reported that American investors who used fake crypto-applications and sites lost at least $42.7 million. According to FBI, 244 people were victims of fraudsters who create copies of web pages and mobile wallets of famous companies.

Our Crypto-Upvotes experts warn you to be careful when visiting unknown sites. Or when installing applications on your devices. Hidden mining is a real risk that you could lose your money.