Weekly Mining News 0530-0605

1.

The New York State Senate recently passed a two-year moratorium on PoW crypto mining. Environmentalist and state legislator Anna Kelles called on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the bill into law and deny the air permit of Bitcoin mining company Greenidge Generation at a press conference on Friday.

2.

Greenidge Generation then declared that the act did not apply to its operations, citing Kelles himself in an April report in the Wall Street Journal.

“This is essentially a power plant bill. This bill says for the next two years we are not going to allow cryptocurrency miners to buy power plants that use fossil fuels and use them for cryptocurrency mining. That’s the crux of this bill,” Kelles, the bill’s lead sponsor, said at a press conference.

Greenidge Generation is one of two bitcoin miners in the state that uses this model, and its air permit is currently under review by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The department postponed the deadline for a decision until June 30, two days after the state is set to elect a new governor. (CoinDesk)

3.

After the New York Senate passed a two-year moratorium on PoW mining, the industry is calling on Governor Kathy Hochul, who has the final say, not to sign the bill into law.

New York Bitcoin mining companies said that if the governor eventually signs the bill within the next 10 days, it will prevent new PoW mining facilities using fossil fuel energy from operating in New York State within two years. Mining company Foundry believes that this bill will restrict employment and innovation in New York in the future.

Until Thursday, the bill seemed to be stalled in the Senate, with no signs that it would be brought to a vote. But by early Friday morning, it was moved from the Environmental Protection Committee to the Energy and Telecommunications Committee and ultimately to the state Assembly, where it passed with 36 votes in favor and 27 against. The bill also requires the Department of Environmental Protection to conduct a general environmental impact statement for all crypto mining operations in the state. (The Block)

Some industry insiders believe that the New York State mining ban may have a domino effect in the United States. The bill has passed the Senate vote and is now at the stage where Governor Kathy Hochul decides whether to sign it. They believe that the outflow of crypto miners may have a negative impact on jobs and tax revenue in the state, and may be imitated nationwide.

V God expressed his opposition to the New York State mining ban in a tweet. He believes that it is a bad idea for the government to choose which specific applications can use electricity resources. A better approach would be to implement carbon pricing and use part of the revenue to compensate low-income users.

4.

Bloomberg Law: The Biden administration is developing policy proposals to reduce the energy consumption and emissions footprint of cryptocurrency mining, marking its first foray into the crypto industry. Critics say the crypto industry threatens U.S. climate goals and puts pressure on the power grid. The policy proposal report is expected to be released in August.

5.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Fifth Central Ecological and Environmental Protection Supervision Group reported on the second round of ecological and environmental protection supervision in Xinjiang on June 1, saying that some local governments and departments have insufficient understanding of the importance and fragility of the autonomous region's ecological environment, blindly launched "two high" projects and failed to effectively control them. Since 2018, the Zhundong Economic and Technological Development Zone has attracted investment to settle in six illegal, high-energy-consuming virtual currency mining companies.

6.

Mining company BIT Mining announced the completion of its first acquisition of Bee Computing, a developer and manufacturer of mining chips and mining machines. BIT Mining issued 16,038,930 Class A common shares to selling shareholders. Bee Computing is developing three types of mining machines, among which the new generation of Bitcoin mining machines will be equipped with 7-nanometer chips, with a theoretical computing power of up to 110 TH/s and a power consumption of 3300W.

7.

Recently, the People's Court of Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jiangsu Province, heard a case involving a Bitcoin "mining machine" leasing contract dispute. The court ruled that illegal debts are not protected by law, the relevant contract is invalid, and rejected the plaintiff's request for the return of rent and Bitcoin income.

8.

Listed mining company Bitfarms released an update on its production and mining operations for May 2022. As of May 31, the computing power was 3.4 EH/s; a total of 431 BTC were mined in May, a year-on-year increase of 6%, of which 429 BTC were deposited in custody, and the cumulative custody was 6075 BTC; at a BTC price of $31,000, an average of 13.9 BTC were mined per day, equivalent to approximately US$431,000 per day.

9.

Bitcoin mining revenue in May was $906.2 million, down 21.6% from the previous month, with block rewards of $890.01 million and transaction fees of $16.18 million. Compared with October 2021, it has dropped by about 47%, and monthly revenue has generally declined since then. In May, Ethereum miners earned 1.08 times more than Bitcoin miners. (The Block)

10.

Compass Mining, a bitcoin mining service company, reported that the amount of bitcoin flowing from miners to exchanges has reached its highest point since January, citing CoinMetrics data. Compass said miners may start selling their bitcoins to the open market, such as Core Scientific, the miner with the largest computing power, which sold part of the bitcoin mined this year.

Argo Blockchain said in a conference call with analysts announcing its first-quarter results that it plans to cover expenses by issuing bonds and selling some of its bitcoin. Cathedra Bitcoin said in a statement on May 30 that it sold 235 bitcoins this month to improve liquidity and protect itself from further price declines. Marathon Digital (MARA), which hinted in an earnings call in early May that it might sell some of its bitcoin. Digihost also announced that it has sold some of its mined bitcoins to help cover energy costs. (CoinDesk)

11.

Bitcoin miner Riot mined 466 bitcoins in May, about 8% less than in April, but about 104% more than the 228 BTC in May 2021. Riot sold 250 bitcoins in May, with sales of about $7.5 million. As of the end of May, Riot still held about 6,536 bitcoins on its balance sheet. (Coindesk)

12.

According to China Securities Journal, *ST Zhongchang announced that Li Qunan, the company's director, former chairman and general manager, was suspected of embezzling more than 53 million yuan to purchase mining machines and pay custody fees. He was filed a criminal case by the Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Public Security Bureau. Recently, the company learned from the public security and judicial authorities that the Chaoyang District Procuratorate of Beijing had made a decision to approve the arrest of Li Qunan on June 1, 2022.

13.

A report released by CryptoMonday shows that Bitcoin miners spend more than 75% of their income on soaring electricity costs. CryptoMonday said: "BTC mining is a very power-intensive process, with a single BTC transaction consuming approximately 2,165 kWh of electricity. This is equivalent to 74 days of electricity usage for a typical American household, plus the average household pays approximately $0.14/kWh, and the scale of the expenditure becomes apparent." According to research, an average Indian household consumes 5.7 kWh of electricity per day, which means that an average Indian household needs 380 days to consume the equivalent of the amount of electricity needed to mine one Bitcoin. Some estimate that BTC emits nearly 114 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, a figure comparable to the Czech Republic. Other estimates suggest that Bitcoin mining consumes 127 terawatt hours of electricity each year - equivalent to Norway's annual electricity consumption. (abplive)

14.

Oman Investment Authority, Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, participated in a $350 million equity financing round completed in April by clean energy crypto mining company Crusoe Energy Systems Inc., according to a statement. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Crusoe Chief Executive Chase Lochmiller said the company will open an office in Muscat, Oman, to help deploy generators and mining equipment, as well as access natural gas energy.

Crusoe held a seminar in Oman on Monday with the country's largest producers, including OQ SAOC and Petroleum Development Oman. Lochmiller said the first Middle East pilot project will start in late or early 2023. While the decline in Bitcoin prices "will certainly have some impact on our revenue, it will not affect any growth and expansion plans."

Earlier on April 21, Crusoe Energy completed a $350 million Series C financing with a post-investment valuation of $1.75 billion. G2 Venture Partners, which focuses on sustainable energy investment, led the investment, with Bain Capital Ventures, Polychain Capital and Winklevoss Capital participating. (Bloomberg)

15.

Kenyan energy production company KenGen wants to provide its excess geothermal power to bitcoin mining companies to help meet their energy needs.

KenGen said mining companies have been looking to buy its energy. The company did not provide further details, but given that there are no bitcoin mining companies in Africa, the companies that have approached it are said to be from the United States and Europe. (QZ)

16.

Bitzero Blockchain, a Bitcoin mining company committed to 100% renewable energy, announced that it will make North Dakota its headquarters and the center of all North American operations. Bitzero plans to build 200 megawatts of data centers in the state in the next two to three years, with a target investment of $400 million to $500 million for these data centers.

Bitzero Blockchain said it has raised nearly $100 million in investment funds to date and plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) on the Canadian Securities Exchange within the next 60 days and list on Nasdaq after obtaining regulatory approval.

17.

According to local media Nation Thailand, Mining Pro Co. Ltd will invest 170 million baht (nearly $5 million) to build the first cryptocurrency mining farm in Thailand. The mine will be located in Bang Na and is expected to start operations in early 2023; it will initially use Bitmain Bitcoin mining machines imported from China.

Jaturapuch Triphet, CEO of Mining Pro, highlighted the progress of the cryptocurrency mining industry and claimed that it will be a very profitable industry. Triphet revealed that the company earned nearly $6 million in revenue from the sale and rental of mining equipment in the first quarter of 2022. Its goal is to increase this figure to around $30 million by the end of this year. Triphet then pointed out that more and more foreign investors are participating in the crypto mining business in Thailand. Citizens of Vietnam, Hong Kong, Russia and Singapore have also settled here. (Cryptopotato)

18.

A new luxury apartment building in the upscale Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, will be the first to feature a Bitcoin mining facility to help its residents "get paid." The building will be equipped with "five to ten machines that mine the cryptocurrency" and has also signed a contract with "a company that will be responsible for operating the machines," which will receive an undisclosed percentage of the tokens in exchange. Given BTC's volatility, the developers plan to calculate the average price of Bitcoin over a 12-month period and use that as a basis to fund the mining operation to at least 100% of the building's expenditure costs. (cryptonews)

19.

Hive, a distributed storage and computing platform, announced the completion of a €7 million seed round of financing, with participation from Global Ventures, OneRagtime, and angel investors Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters and Chief Director of Morgan Stanley, Moritz Thiele, founder of Finanzcheck.de, and Kumar Yamani, CEO of OSI Digital. At the same time, Hive announced the launch of its platform.

Hive was founded by French engineer and entrepreneur David Gurle. Its peer-to-peer network Hivenet is dedicated to solving the problems of high cost and low security of Web3 cloud storage and computing. It is reported that the Hive network can pool all available computing and storage resources and then allocate them according to demand. Users will receive token incentives based on their contribution to computing resources, thereby solving the growing computing needs in the Web3 era. (Silicon Canals)