Marathon Digital Holdings, a Las Vegas-based Nasdaq-traded company aiming to build the largest mining operation in North America, has ordered 78,000 ANTMINER S19 XP Bitcoin miners, each capable of processing 140 terahashes per second (TH/s).
Key takeaways:
Marathon initially announced the order on December 23, while the pricing information and further details were made public last Tuesday.
Marathon has agreed to pay roughly $11,200 per mining rig. The whole order includes 78,000 units, for a grand total of $879 million.
According to Marathon CEO Fred Thiel, the recently penned deal with Bitman represents the largest order of ANTMINER S19 XP machines to date.
The BTC miners will be delivered in six batches – 13,000 units per month from July to December. Likewise, the massive $879 million sum will be paid out in several phases, following each subsequent shipment of Bitmain’s machines.
In the press release detailing the notable mining expansion, Thiel noted that the massive order of S19 XPs will increase Marathon’s total hash rate by 600%, to 23.3 EH/s by early 2023.
The North American region has become the leading mining hub after Chinese authorities effectively shut down the cryptocurrency mining industry within the country last year. According to data from CBECI, the US commands a 35% share of hash rate ahead of Kazakhstan’s 18% and Russia’s 11%.
The Bitcoin hash rate had achieved a new historic peak of 207.5 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Saturday, just a few days before Bitcoin celebrated its 13th anniversary.
Consisting of 4,747 NFT collections created by Crazy Noodles Studio, its official launch date is set on 5th January 2022.
Non-fungible tokens or NFT’s as they’re popularly known the world over have been gaining popularity and have marked a strong presence around the online sphere. Until now, it was a hard task to decipher what’s original, especially in the art industry of the works that were on a digital platform. It would just be easy for anyone to copy an image, and it would be yours. NFTs have changed this as they are tracked in a ledger called blockchain. If someone mints an original piece of art as an NFT, they can be assured that they are buying the original piece and are the rightful owners of the genuine creation. To push the art space further Crazy Noodles Studio, co-founded by Japanese artist Hiro Ando have jumped into this sphere by introducing Samurai Cats NFT, which is a collection of Ando’s artworks. These would be publicly launched on the 5th of January 2022.
Surprisingly, popular American music producer and DJ of Japanese descent Steve Aoki has also joined the Samurai Cats team, as he found the project to be interesting and of great value. He already owns one of Ando’s Samurai Cats and has been an avid follower of his works. He says that he is proud to be associated with the project and is looking forward to its public launch early this month. Hiro Ando has gained immense popularity owing to his expansive work which ranges from painting, digital media, sculpture, and videos. He has been greatly inspired by the streets of Tokyo and Manga, which has made him create some outstanding sculptures which have been liked by many worldwide. This eminent artist stepped into the creative world in 1995 as an illustrator and since then has churned out some of the most beautiful masterpieces which have gained a massive following. Now, with the introduction of this NFT project, he wants to take the art world to the next level as he strongly feels that digital is the future and the entire world will gradually transition towards it in the coming times.
Crazy Noodles, which was co-founded by Ando has grown into a full-fledged talented team of 10 who have come up with this interesting project which is set to take the industry by storm. A total of 4,747 Samurai Cats are being offered on the platform, with each guaranteeing authenticity. It is a perfect platform for the buyers as well as the artist to navigate between real and digital space with ease. Samurai Cats consist of digital collectibles based on the Ethereum blockchain, assembled from over 300 layers hand drawn by Ando himself. The NFT membership also gives users access and a lot of benefits, including premium membership in their upcoming “Galerie Club” in the metaverse.
Zug, Switzerland, 3 January 2022 – Velas Network AG today announced its partnership with SpaceChain and will be among the pioneers in the space industry that leverage the new space economy for heightened security and immutability . For Velas, this collaboration is a giant leap towards new markets and use cases. The company is proud to be among the first blockchains operating in space outside Earth. In practical terms, this will help contribute to enhanced security, which, in turn, will increase the quality standards for the whole blockchain industry.
The partnership between the space industry and blockchain is mutually beneficial. Conducting transactions via SpaceChain’s decentralized satellite infrastructure (DSI) will provide ultra-security and decentralization to distributed ledger technologies such as the Velas Network. Thus, the blockchain infrastructure is protected against any physical intrusion and regulatory restrictions.
“The new epoch in the development of blockchain technology is right upon us. Humanity needed thousands of years of evolution to reach low Earth orbit. It took about ten years for blockchain to have the first transaction conducted on the low Earth orbit since the moment when the first bytes were transmitted via Bitcoin Network. This blockchain space saga opens up new horizons for both the technology and its users.” – said Farkhad Shagulyamov, Co-Founder and CEO at Velas.
The upcoming collaboration between Velas and SpaceChain is destined for success. SpaceChain will benefit from one of the fastest blockchain technologies ever (with 75,000+ transactions per second). Moreover, Velas will provide SpaceChain with the opportunity to create various cost-effective dApps that will contribute to further space exploration.
“We are excited to be part of such significant leaps in the industry. Velas is currently the third blockchain to engage in this space race and we’re happy to work with such a unique partner as SpaceChain.” – stated Dragos Dumitrascu, Head of Global Partnerships at Velas.
About Velas
The primary mission for Velas is to provide a fast and cost-effective, multi-feature blockchain network. Velas includes the Ethereum Virtual Machine to allow developers to deploy any Ethereum-based dApps on the Velas blockchain premises based on the best parts of the Solana code. As a result, Velas is among the leading platforms for decentralized applications of all kinds with many technological advantages. In addition, the blockchain attracts teams that contribute to further Velas ecosystem expansion with the Velas Grant Program. For more information, visit www.velas.com.
About SpaceChain
SpaceChain fosters decentralized infrastructure for the New Space Economy. By combining space and blockchain technologies, SpaceChain is making the development of space applications easier and making space more accessible. For more information, visit www.spacechain.com.
BaaS infrastructure Wecom has debuted on ProBit Global following the opening of trading markets on December 28. The project provides white-label blockchain tools to align the overall growth of the platform and affiliated partners while bypassing the centralized obstacles of various business industries.
The ERC-based WCO token will provide users with governance participation while also connecting fundraisers and prospective supporters through underlying business alignment and backing opportunities.
By incorporating blockchain elements such as smart contracts and a permissioned ledger, Wecom will help legacy businesses bypass centralized processes grounded on a transparent medium of valuation for versatile payment utility.
The team will connect various business industries with a readily deployable fleet of blockchain tools with the underlying foundation to jumpstart innovation across global enterprises.
ABOUT WECOM
Wecom platform supports business-to-business transactions and cooperation. When multiple companies work together, more value is created. As for WECOM, the growth of the company is the growth of the Wecom platform. Enterprises and startups that will work with WECOM will be revealed soon. They have strengths in education, blockchain R&D, trade, chemistry, leisure, food, IT, finance, & metabus and cooperate with WECOM.
ABOUT PROBIT GLOBAL
ProBit Global is a Top 20 crypto exchange worldwide servicing crypto enthusiasts with unlimited access to trade and buy Bitcoin, Ethereum and 700+ altcoins in 1000+ markets.
PROBIT GLOBAL IS A BRAND TRUSTED BY MILLIONS OF USERS
200,000+ community members 1,000,000+ monthly active users 3,000,000 monthly web visitors 50,000,000 users on partnering aggregators and wallets such as CoinMarketCap User interface of Multilingual website supporting 41 different languages Marketing and community support in 8 key languages
Aviation sharing economy ZETCAB has rolled out trading for its utility token on ProBit Global’s USDT market in a concerted push to widen its ambitious business scope and objective of onboarding 500 airline businesses and 9000 jets under its wings.
The jet sharing service provides signature services for the domestic private airline industry through a global airline alliance to offer more diverse, cost-effective routes and itinerary customization.
With ZETCAB’s network, partnering brands can capitalize on coordinated budgets to drive core operational and production costs down on behalf of not just those in the airline industry but travel agencies and insurance providers.
Using a distributed ledger opens verticals starting with transparent credential verification and educational initiatives with certification courses to onboard the next generation of aviators.
Travelers benefit from cost reductions for their itineraries with an increased range of cost-effective routes along with seasonal promotions and airdrops aimed at driving down costs and generating long-term incentives.
ABOUT ZETCAB
ZETCAB is a data system that converts aircraft, airline, and flight information obtained through the Aircraft Alliance into data and applies blockchain technology.
ABOUT PROBIT GLOBAL
ProBit Global is a Top 20 crypto exchange worldwide servicing crypto enthusiasts with unlimited access to trade and buy Bitcoin, Ethereum and 700+ altcoins in 1000+ markets.
PROBIT GLOBAL IS A BRAND TRUSTED BY MILLIONS OF USERS
200,000+ community members 1,000,000+ monthly active users 3,000,000 monthly web visitors 50,000,000 users on partnering aggregators and wallets such as CoinMarketCap User interface of Multilingual website supporting 41 different languages Marketing and community support in 8 key languages
Bitcoin network celebrates 13 years since the first BTC block was mined and the first transaction sent
Bitcoin was conceived as a digital antidote to the money printing fiat systems and remains one of the more viable alternatives to traditional financial systems to this day
The Bitcoin hash rate hit a new ATH on January 1, showcasing the network’s resiliency and growing activity
Bitcoin massively outperformed other major asset classes in 2021
On January 3, 2009, the first, so-called “genesis block” of the Bitcoin network was mined by Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The mining reward for the completion of the first block was 50 BTC. In the 13 years and three halving events since its inception, Bitcoin has grown from complete obscurity to become one of the most widely recognized financial instruments in modern history.
Bitcoin turns 13, the anti-establishment message lives on
The first Bitcoin was mined roughly two months after the Bitcoin whitepaper was published on October 31, 2008. At the time, it was virtually impossible to envision the massive surge in popularity and value appreciation that the first cryptographic digital currency would undergo in such a short period of time.
The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery to this day. While there are many theories about the creator of Bitcoin – some believe he died shortly after Bitcoin was created, while others are convinced that it was never a single person that conceived Bitcoin but rather a group of software engineers and mathematicians driven by contempt towards the modern monetary system.
American cryptographer Hal Finney was the recipient of the first BTC transaction, which was sent 10 days after the Bitcoin blockchain went live. Satoshi, who sent 10 BTC to Finney, included a message in the transaction that reads “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” The short message consists of the date and headline of The Times’ news article and, in no uncertain terms, criticizes governments and banks for their actions in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008.
While Bitcoin has attracted numerous high-profile corporate investors over the years, its anti-establishment nature lives on. Bitcoin’s artificially set maximum coin supply and decentralized nature of the network are the main reasons why many investors and people from all walks of life perceive the world’s oldest crypto as the main antidote to the bloated and inherently inflationary monetary system of fiat currencies.
Bitcoin hash rate hits a new all-time high at the turn of the year, crypto was the best performing asset class of 2021
Bitcoin is celebrating its 13th birthday with an all-time high hash rate – on Saturday, the hash rate hit a new peak of 207.5 exahashes per second (EH/s), which marks the network’s complete recovery in just 8 months since Beijing authorities began their extensive operation of shutting down crypto mining facilities within China back in May of 2021.
Bitcoin hash rate has completely recovered from China’s mining crackdowns and hit a new ATH on the first day of 2022. Image source: Blockchain.com
The Bitcoin hash rate is based on the computational power of crypto miners participating in the process of securing the network and is widely regarded as one of the better measures of the Bitcoin network’s activity and healthiness. For a more detailed overview of the Bitcoin network and major market events that shaped 2021, click here.
A former institutional investor with 25 years of experience in financial markets, who goes by the moniker of PlanB@100trillionUSD on Twitter, recently shared how different asset classes as a whole performed throughout 2021 and compared the results to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin significantly outperformed all major asset classes, despite having a relatively bad finish to the year. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that Bitcoin performed vastly better than gold, despite the growing concerns related to inflation rates hitting multi-year highs. The narrative of Bitcoin being a better inflation hedge than precious metals has started picking up steam last year as investors have become increasingly more comfortable choosing digital assets over gold for inflation hedging purposes.
The world’s largest crypto has been consolidating below the $50,000 mark and changing hands in a relatively tight range over the past week, which in turn leaves it with a lot of room to grow in the coming weeks.
If there’s anything that made the headlines as much as the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, it’s definitely non-fungible tokens (NFT). At first, many people were skeptical about what the hype was all about, but all doubts got erased once news broke about NFTs getting sold for millions of dollars.
Essentially, NFTs can be anything digital. This includes music, videos, and GIFs. There’s also virtually no barrier to entry, as anyone can buy and sell NFTs. However, much of the hype revolves around using this new technology to sell digital art.
It’s worth noting that NFTs don’t only attract those who know their way around cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. In fact, many artists are starting to realize the potential of NFTs in terms of expanding their reach.
Case in point is Hiro Ando, one of Japan’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. Hiro began his career in Tokyo in 1995, working primarily as an illustrator. He branched out into other forms of media, including sculptures and paintings, for which he has become best known.
With themes that merge traditional and contemporary Japanese culture, Hiro’s masterpieces prove to be unique, compelling, and irresistible to many of his fans. In 2005, he co-founded the Neo pop artist collective studio called Crazy NOOdles with fellow artist Saori Nakamishi. Now, Hiro enters the world of blockchain technology with Samurai Cats NFTs.
What are Samurai Cats?
Samurai Cats NFTs consist of a unique digital collection by Hiro Ando. It’s the first NFT collection by the Crazy NOOdle Gang, featuring one of Hiro’s most iconic creations, the Samurai Cat.
A total of 4,747 Samurai Cats NFTs are available, each of which is randomly generated from more than 300 layers of handmade drawings by Hiro and the Crazy NOOdle Gang. The Samurai Cats have distinctive outfits, colors, and faces that embody a multitude of Japanese culture representations.
Thanks to the Samurai Cats NFTs, Hiro’s fans all across the globe finally have a chance to own one of his works of art. What’s more, you are granted full ownership and commercial use rights upon minting the NFT.
Existing owners of Hiro’s physical artworks were given a free NFT. Among his biggest followers is American DJ and record producer, Steve Aoki. Steve owns SamuraiCat Blu and frequently features it in Aoki’s Playhouse.
Be a Part of Samurai Cats Nation
Once you own a Samurai Cat NFT, you can enjoy a range of benefits. Your NFT membership provides access to the exclusive Galerie Club and invitations to events and members-only auctions. You’ll also be among the first to join private drops of new collections from the next generation of artists from the Crazy NOOdle Gang.
If that’s not enough, you can even share your ideas with the artists and discuss what direction the gang should go next. Not only do you have a chance to be a collector of Hiro’s artworks, but you can share your artistic spirit at the same time.
If you’re looking for new NFTs to start investing in, you can’t go wrong with joining the Samurai Cats Nation. Head over to OpenSea to sift through the collection. Join the Discord channel and follow on Twitter to stay updated about the project.
The project features a central value proposition of providing high throughput to facilitate global transactions through a CEX while affording holders a wide array of earning capabilities through staking, yield mining, and other core features which will generate passive token accumulation.
A central NFT marketplace will enable digital collectible enthusiasts to mint and monetize their NFT through features provided by the platform.
Further rollouts and incentives include airdrops and upcoming governance rights for holders to align with user incentives for enhanced participation in the growing development of the platform.
ABOUT SHIBABITCOIN
The main purpose of the project is to overcome the problems which the investors are facing on a daily basis such as high transaction fees, low liquidity, loss of trust etc. We have a well equipped team to overcome these problems. On our exchange we provide free transactions, referral bonuses and high profile NFT collections for the SHIBTC holders.
ABOUT PROBIT GLOBAL
ProBit Global is a Top 20 crypto exchange worldwide servicing crypto enthusiasts with unlimited access to trade and buy Bitcoin, Ethereum and 700+ altcoins in 1000+ markets.
PROBIT GLOBAL IS A BRAND TRUSTED BY MILLIONS OF USERS
200,000+ community members 1,000,000+ monthly active users 3,000,000 monthly web visitors 50,000,000 users on partnering aggregators and wallets such as CoinMarketCap User interface of Multilingual website supporting 41 different languages Marketing and community support in 8 key languages
Christmas has come early in the cryptoland in 2021. Having been described as the best performing asset class of 2021, the $2.39 trillion market cap for cryptocurrencies is a holiday gift the mainstream can’t afford to ignore. Now, this has its real-life implications, no matter how you feel about the Year of Crypto – people are going crazy with buying gifts online and at brick-and-mortar stores and the payments are being increasingly made with cryptocurrencies.
Yet, the post-pandemic shopping craze has driven merchants and buyers crazy, as all of these transactions are made with various cryptocurrencies one can hardly keep track of. How do we make things easier for both the shoppers and businesses without having to rely on Santa Claus and his magic bag?
In Search of the Chain
While the literal shopping spree powered by the blockchain seems like an unexpected present for all crypto aficionados, there is no time for celebration. A shadow of bottlenecks is acting like a Grinch for all of those who want to see crypto payments become equal peers to cash and cards.
These bottlenecks refer to the creations of silos around individual chains that can support holiday shopping. For the sake of a thought experiment, just imagine that you saw a perfect holiday gift that can be paid for in Ethereum. Once you purchase it, you get to your favorite diner only to discover that it accepts Dash. Or, even worse, a food-themed Munchotoken (OK, scratch out that fictional one). Despite your protests, there is nothing stopping the industry or an individual establishment to adopt the best token for the goods and services it offers, holidays or not.
What you can do next is to go down the route of an unwanted holiday tour of the exchanges and swap Ethereum for Dash in order to buy a simple hotdog. Once you finally get the right currency, you get a glimpse of yet another perfect holiday gift, but, this time, the price tag is attached with yet another currency symbol.
If you decide to (once again) convert your Ethereum, the price of the item in question (and the meal that came before it) goes up just by the amount of the conversion fee you had to pay to the exchange. It quickly amounts to a substantial sum that leads you to question your New Year’s decision to go all crypto in 2022.
How do we get around this?
Order from Chaos
With this “cacophony” of currencies and accepted payment methods that are part of the holiday season in the cryptoverse, you can only try to imagine what the future will look like if we are to use blockchain technology as often as we want.
Do we abolish the Crypto Wild West altogether and let the one currency prevail?
No.
Wanchain is the project that sets its sights on preventing this future scenario, but its work has already started in the present when it was launched as a hub that collects all the blockchain transactions. First of all, the platform is chain-agnostic, meaning that no matter what chain the payment is made from, Wanchain will provide a bridge between the customer and the goods and service provider.
To better understand this, let’s get back to the imaginary Ethereum coin purse you want to make thinner during the holidays. With Wanchain, you get access to a Wan wallet that exists on its chain. You can simply store Ethereum in this wallet and then, bam, you immediately get the opportunity to conduct cross-chain transactions that involve assets on other chains.
Wanting Interoperability for Christmas
Cross-chain transactions describe the support for the interoperability between two or more blockchains that have been originally designed as independent systems. This is done by providing support for asset swap and asset transfers by which the users can get around the obstacle of being limited to the chain their assets exist on. With Wanchain, these assets can be transferred and integrated across diverse chains, no matter how siloed or self-sufficient they may appear in their existence as a single ecosystem.
This goes beyond mere payment across chains and the storage of your precious tokens in a Wan wallet. As an entry ticket to participating in the wealth of opportunities offered by DeFi, Wan wallet can be a holiday present-turned-investment.
Take, for example, Wanchain’s cross-chain integration with XRP assets from Ripple. Users that own native XRP can cross-chain it to take part in various DeFi applications, including WanSwap. “Various” does not really cover it, but let’s mention at least the most popular financial applications such as the provision of liquidity, lending, mining, pledging, and others.
Yes, the cross-chain will surely bridge the world of mortals and the DeFi in the months ahead of us. In the meantime, the draw of easy exchange of assets at low fees and the ability to support any partner network that wants to jump on this bandwagon will make value-exchange hubs such as Wanchain a regular partner of our future holiday (and non-holiday) shopping expeditions.
Conclusion
We started this overview with a reference to the holiday season as the perfect time for reflecting on the limits of blockchain-based payments. Yet, this issue will hardly fall into obscurity once the age of reindeer-powered shopping is over. Actually, closing the gap between the lofty goals of the decentralized cross-chain payment and its real-life application is a year-round task for all who want to see the everyday application of the blockchain become a holiday wish-come-true.
