Category: Mining

The vice-chair of Europe’s securities and markets authority has said that proof-of-work crypto mining should be banned. Erik Thedéen warned that crypto mining poses a risk to meeting climate change goals outlined in the Paris agreement in comments to the FT. He said that regulators across Europe should consider a ban on “proof-of-work” mining, a highly energy intensive method for creating new coins which is used by the world’s two largest crypto projects – Bitcoin and Ethereum. “The solution is to ban proof of work,” Thedéen told the FT. “Proof…

Amid Iran’s energy consumption increasing during the winter, local energy authorities have decided to halt operations of authorized cryptocurrency mining centers. Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, chairman of the board and managing director of Iran Grid Management Company (Tavanir), announced that Iran is shutting down crypto mining centers again to reduce liquid fuel consumption in power plants amid decreasing temperatures. Mashhadi said that Iranian authorities took this action to reduce energy consumption last month, The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) reported on Dec. 25. “The Energy Ministry has been implementing measures…

El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, has told the country’s state-owned geothermal electric company to come up with a plan to offer power for Bitcoin mining data centers. The move follows the country becoming the first to recognize the controversial cryptocurrency as legal tender, despite Bitcoin’s environmental impact and the lack of Internet penetration in El Salvador. “I’ve just instructed the president of LaGeo (our state-owned geothermal electric company), to put up a plan to offer facilities for Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100 percent clean, 100 percent renewable, 0 emissions…

Iran has banned mining for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, after blackouts hit major cities. The move follows restrictions on crypto mining in China. Iran’s power cuts are blamed on droughts, but the ban, announced on state TV, will require miners to shut down for four months. All crypto miners in Iran have to pay a license fee and a higher electricity tariff, but the majority are unlicensed, according to Bloomberg. President Hassan Rouhani announced the ban on state TV, saying that the ban will last at least until September 22.…

Cryptocurrency mining surges have caused GPU shortages and price spikes, helped resurrect fossil fuel power plants, and consumed more energy than some countries. Now, it’s targeting the storage industry. Cryptocurrency Chiacoin has pitched itself as a green alternative to compute-intensive currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. Instead of requiring computational power, it primarily requires ‘proof-of-space’ in hard drives and SSDs to be mined. Now, as Chiacoin’s popularity spikes, hard drives are in high demand. Chia uses 100GB clusters on a hard drive called plots. The more plots, the higher chance…

GPU giant Nvidia plans to release a processor designed for mining cryptocurrency Ethereum, and will put artificial limits on how effective its future GPUs are at mining. The first in the Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) series will focus on Ether mining, used to make the Ethereum cryptocurrency possible, and is set to release in March. CMP chips will not do graphics processing, Nvidia said. Unlike gaming-focused GeForce GPUs, they also lack display outputs, enabling improved airflow while mining so they can be more densely packed. CMPs also have a lower…

Canaan, one of the earliest manufacturers of Bitcoin (BTC) ASIC miners, has released the Avalon Immersion Cooling Miner A1066I, a device designed to be liquid-cooled. Unlike traditional air-cooled devices and common types of liquid cooling for enthusiast PCs, the A1066I’s electrical components are submerged in a special dielectric fluid that carries heat away directly from the boards. Dielectric fluids are specially engineered to insulate the components and avoid the corrosion damage and short-circuiting that would occur with standard water or other types of fluids. This is also different from liquid…