cryptocurrency

Fidelity Acquires 10% Stake in Bitcoin Mining Firm Hut 8

14/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

The giant fund manager Fidelity International holds roughly 10.6% stake in the bitcoin mining company Hut 8. For six years now, Fidelity, the firm that currently manages $300 billion on behalf of its customers, has been mining the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

In May 2017, news.Bitcoin.com reported on Fidelity integrating with Coinbase, mining bitcoin, and even accepting the digital asset at the firm’s cafeteria at its headquarters. Fidelity has been mining bitcoin since 2014, and over the years the firm has increased its stake in this growing industry.

On June 10, a newly filed alternative monthly reporting (AMR) disclosure with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) shows that Fidelity owns around 10.6% stake in the mining firm Hut 8.

Just recently Hut 8 Mining Corp., raised $8.3 million by selling shares to investors and it intends to add 275 PH/s of mining capacity to existing operations. The regulatory filing with the OSC shows that Fidelity International holds a great number of Hut 8 shares.

“Fidelity holds 8,396,138 Common Shares and 2,054,956 common share purchase warrants, as a result of which Fidelity is deemed to hold 10,451,094 Common Shares representing approximately 10.58% of the outstanding shares of that class,” the Hut 8 AMR reads.

A look at the share composition indicates that Fidelity keeps a number of common shares and also has the ability to gather more shares in the future.

Of course, Fidelity discloses that “funds and accounts managed by Fidelity that hold the securities referenced herein may, from time-to-time, lend some or all of such securities pursuant to securities lending arrangements for such periods of time.”

“The Common Shares and warrants of Hut 8 Mining Corp. were acquired in the ordinary course of business, for investment purposes only and not with the purpose of exercising control or direction over Hut 8 Mining Corp,” the ARM notes.

The ARM was invoked after Hut 8 raised the $8.3 million by selling shares to investors during the underwritten public offering. In order to add 275 PH/s of mining capacity, Hut 8 detailed that it plans to purchase Whatsminer series mining rigs (M30S, M31S, M31S+) from the Chinese manufacturer Microbt.

Hut 8 initiated its mining operations in 2017 and in the spring of 2018, it was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Bitcoin proponents on social media and digital currency-focused forums seemed pleased with Fidelity increasing stake in Hut 8 mining. One person tweeted that with the Bitcoin mining difficulty at a record high, “Fidelity bets big on Bitcoin mining.”

During the early morning trading sessions, the HUTMF stock charts on Trading View had shown the price was hovering at $0.82 apiece, but since the Fidelity announcement, it has risen to $0.8758.

What do you think about Fidelity betting big on bitcoin mining? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin Difficulty Touches All-Time High, 120 Exahash of Hashpower Remains Strong

13/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

The network difficulty for the Bitcoin network spiked over 9.8% on Monday bringing the difficulty to its highest point ever. The record high of 17.35 trillion makes it much harder for bitcoin miners to profit. However, the overall Bitcoin network hashrate has remained consistently above the 120 exahash per second (EH/s) zone.

On July 13, 2020, the Bitcoin (BTC) network saw it’s largest difficulty metric ever, as it touched the 17.35 trillion mark on Monday. Basically, difficulty is the value used to measure how difficult it is to find a hash below a target defined by the Bitcoin network.

The network has a global block difficulty and validated blocks must have a hash below the given target. Essentially the lower the difficulty, the easier it is to find blocks on the BTC network, and the higher the difficulty means acquiring bitcoins via mining is much harder. The difficulty changes every two weeks depending on hashrate speed or approximately every 2016 blocks.

The Bitcoin (BTC) network sees the highest difficulty jump ever.

The 17.35 trillion is the highest the difficulty has ever been, which means it is the most difficult time ever to mine bitcoins right now. Moreover, it was only just recently on May 11, 2020, when the block reward was cut in half, and miners saw 50% revenue losses overnight.

Now the upwards spike in difficulty over 9.8% wasn’t as large as the 14.95% jump on June 16, 2020. However, at that time the difficulty was only 15.78 trillion. The second-largest difficulty height happened three days before the grueling March 12 market crisis, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday.’

The Bitcoin (BTC) network hashrate continues to climb higher.

Despite the jump in difficulty to 17.35 trillion, the overall BTC global hashrate has remained high above the 120 EH/s range. There are 16 unique mining pools hashing away at the BTC network and the top mining pool is F2pool.

This is followed by operations such as Poolin, Btc.com, Antpool, and Huobi respectively. F2pool’s hashpower is roughly 16% of the network while Poolin has a touch over 15%. The latter three pools have around 10% or more of the entire BTC global hashrate.

The hashrate increase has bitcoiners discussing the mining difficulty situation via social media and crypto forums. Many are conversing about the overall security of the BTC network and whether or not the hashrate will drop or rise from here.

If the overall BTC hashrate continues to climb higher, then the difficulty will rise again in two weeks’ time. If there is a substantial exodus of miners shutting down machines temporarily, then the difficulty will drop after the next 2016 blocks are consumed.

What do you think about the Bitcoin network’s difficulty jumping to its highest metric ever? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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$424 Million and Numismatic Value: There’s Only 20,000 Casascius Physical Bitcoins Left Unspent

12/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

For many years now physical bitcoins have been a very popular trend, but one specific type called the Casascius physical bitcoin collection has intrigued people for years. Last December, someone redeemed a 100 BTC Casascius bar and since then 560 Casascius coins worth $5.1 million have been redeemed. As of today, there are only 20,901 Casascius coins or bars left in the world, with roughly $424 million worth of bitcoins loaded on them.

Bitcoin’s believe it or not can have nostalgic value, especially when they are tethered to a physical bitcoin. During the last decade, numerous manufacturers have created physical bitcoins that have been loaded with the digital currency.

Most all of these types of coins are collector’s items, as the physical attributes can give the cryptocurrency numismatic value. One of the most popular physical bitcoin creators was Mike Caldwell who issued the Casascius physical bitcoin collection from 2011 to 2013.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government shut down Caldwell’s operation by telling him he could no longer load the physical coins with real digital bitcoin. However, during Caldwell’s tenure of making the Casascius physical bitcoin collection, he minted close to 90,000 BTC in various denominations.

On July 12, 2020, there’s only 45,760 active BTC held on Casascius physical coins or bars in existence, as there were roughly 46,320 active BTC coins in December 2019. That means at today’s BTC/USD exchange rates out of the 560 coins redeemed, $5.1 million in BTC was spent.

Last December when news.Bitcoin.com reported on the 100 BTC gold bar that was redeemed on the 23rd, it was the last 100 BTC peeled since then. So far the highest increment peeled between December and now, was a few 25 BTC coins. At the time of writing, there are still 48- 100 BTC bars that have not been spent, leaving $44.4 million left (100 BTC bars) unspent to-date.

Caldwell also minted a number of 1,000 BTC bars and so far, most of those have been redeemed. The series one 1,000 BTC bar data shows that 87% have been redeemed. The series two Casascius bars only stored 500 BTC and every single one of those bars have been peeled.

Although some individuals are lucky enough to own the series one 1,000 BTC Casascius coins minted in 2011. Only six were manufactured and there are four coins left, and that means only 33.33% of the BTC has been spent so far. It could be possible that due to the size of these coins being much smaller (28.6mm) than the bars (80mm x 40mm x 6mm), a few may have been lost.

In the Casascius collection, there are a lot more physical coins with smaller increments between 0.5 BTC to 25 BTC. As mentioned above, Casascius coins have given bitcoiners a lot of nostalgia, and lots of these coins have gathered numismatic value that far exceeds the BTC value stored on the coin.

For instance, on Ebay there’s two Casascius coins selling for far more than the original BTC value. One example shows a rare 2011- 1 BTC physical Casascius coin selling for $101,000. Another seller on the eBay auction website wants $25k for his 2013- fully funded 1 BTC Casascius coin.

There are not that many Casascius coins on eBay, but there’s a whole lot more coins from manufacturers like Denarium and BTCC Mint. Caldwell did make a number of unloaded Casascius bitcoins that contain no real digital currency value, and those trinkets sell for $25 a pop.

People can follow the redemption cycle of Casascius bitcoins on Twitter by following the bot called Casascius Coin Tracker (@Casasciusbot). When news.Bitcoin.com reported on the 100 BTC bar peel, it was the largest month between now and then for redemptions with 172 coins peeled. In mid-March 54 coins were redeemed and so far only 14 Casascius coins have been peeled in July.

Of course, the biggest month in a long while was December 2017, when the public witnessed 1,172 redeemed Casascius coins. As 560 Casascius coins worth $5.1 million have been redeemed since December 2019, it shows that these physical bitcoins are becoming rarer by the day. It’s likely that as scarcity continues to take hold of these loaded physical bitcoins, they will always be worth more than the original digital load value.

What do you think about the number of Casascius coins left in existence? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin Prize For Winners Of South Africa Mountain Bike Race

11/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

About 150 mountain bikers will compete at this year’s edition of the Munga MTB race in South Africa. The race will commence in the first week of December. The top three finishers in each category will share the 1.5 bitcoin in prize money.

The Bitstamp sponsored race was launched in 2015. Bikers from South Africa, as well as those from around the world, will take part in the event. Alex Harris is the director of the Munga MTB.

At last year’s event, the prize money was 1.5 bitcoin that was divided into three categories; men, women and the development category. The third category features non-white bikers.

Each category is awarded 0.5 bitcoin that will be split between the top three finishers. According to Harris, the prize money for this year’s race has not changed.

The Munga MTB race runs over a little more than 1000 kilometres through the semi-desert karoo, and there are 5 race villages where riders can rest, eat and get mechanical assistance.

There are also several water points placed between 60 and 90 kilometres apart.

Harris explains that it was Bitstamp that approached them with the idea of “using bitcoin as prize money.” Consequently, the prize money at the time was “converted into the equivalent in bitcoin.”

Meanwhile, Harris also explains the process of distributing the prize money to winners. He says since the South Africa Reserve Bank (SARB) has not formulated cryptocurrency regulations, the 1.5 bitcoin “goes to a Munga Bitstamp account.”

The prize winners can “elect to hold onto to their bitcoin, or instruct us to sell.” If winners choose the latter, an exact amount of the South African Rand currency gets transferred from the Munga to their account.

What do you think about Munga’s idea of giving bike racers bitcoin as prize money? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Crypto Facilities Gets FCA Nod to Set up Crypto Futures Venue

08/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

Crypto Facilities, a subsidiary of Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, has obtained a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) license from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

An MTF is a European regulatory term for a self-regulated financial trading venue. MTFs are an alternative to a traditional stock exchange where a market is made in securities, typically using electronic systems.

Touting this as a first on the European continent, Crypto Facilities says the license enables it to expand its product range. It will do this whilst staying inside the regulatory perimeter.

Traditionally, an MTF license is usually granted to approved market operators or larger investment banks. This is to allow retail investors to trade financial securities.

For Crypto Facilities, getting a nod from a regulator means it is now better placed to serve institutional clients.

In a statement, Jesse Powell, CEO and Cofounder of Kraken, says getting the license means constrained investors can interface with a regulated venue such as an MTF. This gives them “access to crypto derivatives in Europe for the first time.”

Powell adds, “We undergo these licensing efforts because Kraken is about making crypto accessible for everyone.”

Crypto Facilities’ MTF announcement comes a few days after FCA’s release of findings of a cryptocurrency research study. The research shows an increase in the number of UK citizens owning cryptocurrency.

In addition to Crypto Facilities’ validation, regulated institutions opt for MTF because they offer a level playing field for all market participants.

Buyers and sellers are matched according to a set of transparent rules that do not discriminate between members. When buying an instrument at a certain price, a user able to do so if a corresponding sell order is available.

Also, MTFs are compliant with the European Union’s (EU’s) Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II). MiFID II aims to increase competition in the financial markets and enhance investor protections.

What do you think about Crypto Facilities approval? Let us know in the comments section below.

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