Blockstream has launched a colocation mining service and already
counts the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology and LinkedIn founder
Reid Hoffman as customers.
On Thursday, the bitcoin and blockchain technology firm announced
a new mining wing, Blockstream Mining, along with a BetterHash-based
mining pool, Blockstream Pool. Led by cryptographer Dr. Adam Back,
Blockstream is best known for its bitcoin-sidechain ecosystem, the Liquid Network.
Blockstream Mining will host colocation services across North America
with its most recent installation in Georgia. The announcement stated
that 300 megawatts, or 300,000 kilowatt-hours of energy, will be made
available to customers.
That level of energy supply would be able to power up around 100,000
more-advanced ASIC mining models such as MicroBT’s WhatsMiner M20S or
Bitmain’s AntMiner S17 Pro.
These machines on average have an electricity consumption of about 3
kWh per unit with a hashing power of around 55 terahashes per second.
That could add about six exhashes per second to bitcoin network’s
computing power (1 exhash = 1 million terahash).
Blockstream says its self-mining
efforts currently make up one percent of the global bitcoin hash rate.
The future relationship between Blockstream’s self-mining and
Blockstream Mining was not specified.
Blockstream CSO Samson Mow says the
firm’s mining efforts, even before the latest launch, were largely based
on concerns about the network’s future:
“We began self-mining
back in 2017 after being motivated by widespread concern that mining
decentralization was declining. At the time it appeared that parties
involved in ASIC manufacture, hosting, and pool operations were becoming
a centralizing force and holding back Bitcoin from reaching its full
potential. We figured we could use our Bitcoin expertise to improve the
situation.”
In this vein, Blockstream also
announced the launch of Blockstream Pool running the BetterHash mining
protocol. Introduced in 2014 by Blocskstream project OpenHash,
BetterHash decentralizes mining pool decisions, such as which block to
mine, to individual owners. Proponents argue it further decentralizes
and democratizes bitcoin mining.
Blockstream Pool is the graduate of a
one-year testnet and is available to Blockstream Mining customers. As
of now, Blockstream Mining is exclusive to enterprises and institutions.
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