BTC.com

Chinese Lottery Firm Rebrands, Purchases Bitcoin Mining Rig Manufacturer for $100 Million

08/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

Following the acquisition of the Chinese mining pool Btc.com, the China-based lottery company 500.com revealed the purchase of a bitcoin mining rig manufacturer Bee Computing. The Shenzhen firm purchased the semiconductor and mining device manufacturer for roughly $100 million in a share exchange agreement.

500.com Changes Name to Bit Mining Limited and Acquires Bee Computing for $100 Million

On April 5, 2021, the company 500.com Limited (NYSE: WBAI) registered a statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a Form 6-K filing. The Shenzhen-based firm detailed that it entered into a share exchange agreement with the company Bee Computing. The mining rig manufacturer Bee Computing was established in 2018 and the filing notes that it specializes in 7nm-powered mining machines. Additionally, after acquiring the well-established mining pool Btc.com, 500.com changed its name to “Bit Mining Limited.”

Bee Computing has two mining rigs and both leverage 7nm semiconductors. The Pumbaa mining machine gets around 52 terahash per second (TH/s) and the B2T series gets around 21 TH/s. The most powerful miner has an efficiency rating of around 54 joules per terahash (J/TH) and the B2T has around 55 J/TH. The share exchange agreement is noteworthy and totals around $100 million for the acquisition.

The company’s SEC filing explains:

Pursuant to the share exchange agreement, the company shall, subject to customary conditions, [and will] issue at the first closing an aggregate of 16,038,930, or US$35 million worth, of its Class A ordinary shares to the selling shareholders. The first closing is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2021. Subject to satisfaction of the following milestones, the company shall issue at the subsequent closing an aggregate of 29,786,600, or US$65 million worth, of its Class A ordinary shares to selling shareholders and research and development team members.

Bee Computing to Continue Mass ASIC Mining Rig Production

Bee Computing is expected to continue the mass production of bitcoin miners incorporated with 7-nanometer application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC). The manufacturer must continue the development of machines with 7nm technology and deploy ETH-based ASIC mining machines as well. Bit Mining also wants Bee Computing to develop litecoin (LTC) mining machines.

According to the filing, Bee Computing has invested over $35 million into R&D projects and leveraged Mediatek Inc., the largest IC design company in Asia to help with the 7nm chips. Yufei Jiang, CEO of Bee Computing says the chips stem from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

What do you think about 500.com’s purchase of Bee Computing and its entry into the bitcoin mining space? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

BTC Transaction Stuck? Bitcoin Cash-Powered Accelerators Can Speed Up Transfers

18/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

At the time of publication, there’s more than 69,000 transactions waiting in line to get confirmed by a bitcoin miner. Since bitcoin’s price rise, at certain times, transaction fees have climbed to $10 to $20 per transfer, and people who pay less than the median fee may have to wait a while. However, people might not realize that there’s a tool people can leverage called a transaction accelerator, a platform that increases the probability of getting a transaction confirmed.

Bitcoin’s Transaction Backlog and Transfer Fees Ramp Up

On Wednesday, February 17, 2021, bitcoin (BTC) touched a lifetime price high at $52,640 per unit. Since then BTC’s value has retreated a hair but the crypto asset has continued to keep steady between the $51,000 to $52,000 price range.

Meanwhile, BTC fees have also steadily increased as the cost per transfer is currently $16.62 to get a transaction into the next block according to bitcoinfees.cash data. BTC’s median fee is lower and around $10.76 per transfer according to the web portal. Stats from bitinfocharts.com shows the average bitcoin transaction today is $22.70 USD or 0.0000011 BTC per byte.

Because fees are so high and competing, the Bitcoin network’s transaction backlog (mempool) shows a great number of unconfirmed transactions are waiting to be cleared. Data from the site Blockchain.com shows the mempool transaction count or the total number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool, is above 69,000 transactions on Thursday. Cryptocurrency transaction stats from txstreet.com shows 77,034 transactions are waiting for a BTC miner confirmation.

Unfortunately, the number of transactions pending and the ability to compete with higher fees has made people wait an awfully long time for a single confirmation. When a long time ago a small fee could get a BTC transaction cleared with 10 minutes now can take hours and even days to get a single transaction if the fee is too low.

People can leverage a tool that is available in a few select BTC wallets called replace-by-fee (RBF), but a majority of BTC wallets do not leverage the RBF protocol. However, there is a tool that people can use called a transaction accelerator which allows people to pay a fee and push a transaction faster.

Speed Up a Bitcoin Transaction With Bitcoin Cash-Powered Transaction Accelerators

The web portals btc.com and viabtc.com, both offer transaction accelerators, and users can even pay in bitcoin cash (BCH) to speed up a transfer. The web portal pushtx.btc.com says that leading bitcoin mining pools cooperate to provide the transaction accelerator service.

“Using our transaction accelerator can increase the probability of confirming a transaction within 1 hour to 75%, within 4 hours to 98%,” the website notes. The person who wants to speed up a transaction simply adds the transaction hash and the program will give an estimated fee. Btc.com, which just got acquired by a Chinese lottery firm, is the Bitcoin network’s third-largest mining pool today.

Viabtc is also a mining operation that also offers users a number of other cryptocurrency services. The company’s mining pool is the sixth-largest mining pool pointing hashrate at the Bitcoin network on February 18. Viabtc also provides a transaction (TX) accelerator service and one is free and the other service can be paid for with bitcoin cash (BCH) to speed up a transfer.

“When there’s a pending transaction caused by a crowded BTC network or low miner fees,” Viabtc’s transaction accelerator website explains. “You can use TX Accelerator to accelerate the confirmation of a BTC transaction.”

People may need a tool like a transaction accelerator because they would like their transactions confirmed quickly. The problem with slow settlements and confirmation times is because prices fluctuate, a person could lose money trying to send BTC to an exchange to make a timely trade. Transaction accelerators are simply a band-aid to an ongoing problem, but they are definitely better than nothing at all and worth knowing about.

Moreover, because btc.com’s and viabtc.com’s transaction accelerator users can leverage bitcoin cash (BCH), they can utilize the BCH network’s low transfer fees. Data from bitinfocharts.com, bitcoinfees.cash, and txstreet.com indicate that the current fee to get into the next BCH block is only $0.0035 or a third of a penny.

What do you think about btc.com’s and viabtc.com’s transaction accelerators? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Publicly-Listed Chinese Lottery Firm Acquires Bitcoin Mining Pool Btc.com

17/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

A U.S. publicly-listed Chinese sports lottery firm is extending its arms into the crypto industry by announcing another related maneuver. 500.com Ltd announced it has acquired Btc.com, the well known bitcoin mining pool.

Jihan Wu Is the ‘ Biggest Beneficial Owner’ of the Mining Pool

Per the announcement, the online lottery service provider bought the company from Blockchain Alliance. 500.com performed the transaction by issuing newly class A shares, representing almost a 10% stake in the listed Chinese company.

According to the filings, 500.com Ltd made the share exchange agreement with Blockchain Alliance Technologies Holding Company, a Cayman Islands-based firm. Currently, the Chinese lottery provider giant has a market capitalization of $860 million, and the transaction specifies some conditions.

One of them includes the profits generated by Btc.com, which in case that such net figures are no less than $20 million by the end of 2021, the current shareholders will get up to a 5% stake in 500.com Ltd.

It means that a maximum of 22,176,718 additional “Class A Ordinary Shares” shall be issuable, stated the announcement. The first transaction under the agreement is expected to happen on or before April 15, 2021.

Bitdeer Technologies Holding Company is the operator of the pool. Moreover, its “biggest beneficial owner” is currently is Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu.

Btc.com claims to have over 10% of bitcoin (BTC) hashrate, becoming one of the top five largest mining pools globally.

Not the First Crypto-Related Business Maneuver Made by 500.com

But 2020 wasn’t a good year for the Chinese lottery service provider. According to the yearly figures, the company posted around $29.9 million in losses over 2020.

However, 500.com started the year on a bullish note due to a significant bitcoin mining-related acquisition. As news.Bitcoin.com reported earlier in January, the company reached an initial agreement to acquire BTC mining machines from an unnamed non-U.S. seller.

The full amount of the transaction — $14.4 million — will allow the company to acquire the machines, including such models as the M20s from Microbt S17, T17, and S9 units from Bitmain.

What do you think about the latest 500.com crypto-related acquisition? Let us know in the comments section below.

Sports Gambling Website 500.com Acquires Bitcoin Mining Pool BTC.com

16/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

Today, Shenzhen, China-based sports lottery site 500.com announced the acquisition of major Bitcoin mining pool BTC.com from Blockchain Alliance Technologies Holding Company via a share-swap agreement. Blockchain Alliance is operated by BitDeer, which itself is chaired by Jihan Wu, the co-founder of bitcoin mining giant Bitmain.

The terms of this purchase agreement include 500.com using 10 percent of its own outstanding shares to execute it, according to the announcement. The terms also outlined additional share issuances based on the performance of BTC.com businesses.

According to BTC.com mining pool data, it is currently the fourth-largest pool by block validation, contributing just over 10 percent of the total network hash rate over the last three days. As of the time of this writing, BTC.com maintains a hash rate of 15.36 exhahashes per second across that timeframe.

This news comes hot off the heels of 500.com’s announcement in early February that it is purchasing 15,900 bitcoin mining rigs. This is rapid advancement for the online gambling company, which only just announced its intention to enter the blockchain space in January.

It also begs the question of what other non-Bitcoin focused companies will target mining pools for acquisition in the near future. As we see more companies adopt bitcoin as part of their corporate reserve strategies, mergers and acquisitions like this one might be the next steps in the advancement of bitcoin exposure by Wall Street and other institutions.

The post Sports Gambling Website 500.com Acquires Bitcoin Mining Pool BTC.com appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

While BTC’s Hashrate Remains High, It’s More Difficult Than Ever Before to Mine Bitcoin

26/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

At the end of January 2021, Bitcoin’s network mining difficulty, a measure of how complicated it is to mine a block reward, is higher than it’s ever been during the crypto protocol’s lifetime. Currently, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is a whopping 20.8 trillion but despite the handicap, bitcoin miners have continued to keep the network’s hashrate running hot.

Bitcoin Difficulty Touches 20.82 Trillion

Bitcoin (BTC) prices have been higher than ever before and despite the temporary dip on January 21 below the $30k handle, the crypto asset has managed to remain above that range. This has made it so a great number of ASIC mining machines are profiting at the current price per BTC including older generation mining rigs.

Nevertheless, the current Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty is the highest it’s ever been in the last 12 years of operation. The difficulty is essentially how hard it is for a miner to mine a BTC block or basically find a hash below a given target.

The higher the difficulty, the more complicated it is for all the mining participants trying to find bitcoin blocks on any given day. At the time of publication, public data shows the BTC chain’s difficulty is approximately 20,823,531,150,111 or 20.82T.

Small Difficulty Jump Expected in Less Than Two Weeks, Bitcoin Hashrate Runs Hot Above 150 Exahash

There’re around 22 mining pools dedicating SHA256 hashrate at the BTC chain and typically there were usually only around 18 most of the months last year. Presently, these pools have kept the BTC hashrate above the 150 exahash per second (eH/s) region.

During the last two months, BTC’s hashrate has held solid between 140 to 165 EH/s. At current speeds it seems the difficulty will only jump a hair higher at +0.11% to 20.85T in 12 days.

Right now the top five pools mining BTC today, include F2pool (23 EH/s), Poolin (19.2 EH/s), Binance Pool (17.1 EH/s), Btc.com (16.5 EH/s), and Antpool (12.4 EH/s). These top five mining pools command 61.45% of the entire SHA256 hashrate today, while 17 mining pools capture 38.55% of the remaining hashrate.

What do you think about the current mining difficulty touching a lifetime high? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.