The Current State and Future of the Cryptocurrency Mining Industry

The cryptocurrency mining industry has entered a new stage of maturity and stability. Since Bitmain's establishment in 2013, the company has spared no effort to develop advanced technologies and innovations to move the industry forward.

At the forum, Irene Gao, Sales Director of NSCA, Antminer, announced the new global sales strategy from Bitmain. The company will adopt an ordering method with insured clauses for users. Antminer recently introduced an annual batch order purchase for the Antminer S19j Pro to meet the growing market needs for mining hardware. The miner can genuinely bring a long-term investment value to customers by a solid hash rate at 100 TH/s and a low energy efficiency ratio of 29.5 J/TH.

Eric Wang, North American Operations Manager at AntPool, introduced the mining pool development. According to Eric, he has witnessed a significant hash rate growth in the region in recent years and forecasts that the part will continue to grow.

To better empower miners, Bitmain announced at the CMF that the company would develop a global mining map to assist customers in finding the best/new locations for new facilities set-up. Besides, Bitmain will establish more cooperative mining centers in North America to empower the industry to flourish and promise to meet the goal of repairing miners in the region to achieve a turnaround time (TAT) of 3 days. As the world's leading cryptocurrency mining platform, AntPool will continue to provide miners with more easy-to-use, safe and efficient services, bringing rich and transparent income for miners.

Foundry: Hardware Becomes the Focus of Bitcoin Mining Race

Michael Colyer, CEO of Foundry, the cryptocurrency mining subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG), shared his observations and predictions on the current mining market. He said that due to the continuous advancement of Bitcoin mining technology, the mining industry's demand for chips is competing with other cutting-edge technology companies such as Samsung and Apple, resulting in insufficient global chip supply and a situation of grabbing chip resources. Meanwhile, institutional miners have entered the game, making it harder for people to get miners and more competition as intuitions have vital access to investments.

The specialty of the North American market is that companies have access to capital markets. Therefore, more and more companies plan to go public in the next six months. Moreover, many energy companies have also begun to investigate the Bitcoin market, considering its vast growth potential and will be become more active over time.

In terms of the industry opportunity, Michael pointed out mining hardware will be a great investment option, as most of the mining products can continue to operate for 4-5 years, which will bring a long-term investment value to miners.

State of Mining 2021: Large Scale Operation with Green Development

Moderated by BitOoda CEO Tim Kelly, Core Scientific Chief Customer Success Officer Russell Cann, Greenidge Chief Mining Officer Greg Ohanessian, Crusoe Energy CEO & Co-founder Chase Lochmiller, and Crusoe Energy President & Co-founder Cully Cavness joined the panel themed in the State of Mining in 2021.

At the panel, discussers pointed out that as more and more users and institutions have joined the camp, the mining industry is no longer as fragmented and rough as the "wild west," but it is now moving forward into a stage of institutional miners at a large scale. At present, larger financialization is happening in the space, which increases ways to finance the industry, such as debt financing.

Moreover, mining companies pay more attention to relevant regulations and increase investment in environmental friendliness. The panel highlights that driving green energy for mining will bring more opportunities and be crucial for the future.

In the United States, there is an interrelationship between energy and mining. Experts predict that the use of renewable energy and innovative technologies will become a new trend in the development of the mining industry. On the one hand, more miners will attach more importance to the relations between mining and sustainable energy and use renewable energy to reduce power consumption. On the other hand, the development and application of immersion mining technology is a future trend to keep an eye out for, which can effectively improve the energy efficiency ratio of mining hardware, prolonging the life of miners, and provide mining companies with opportunities to open in better mining locations since favorable mining locations are usually in harsh environments.

Energy suppliers are also starting to understand the mining industry's demands, providing more resources and services for large-scale digital mining. Hosting service is also growing, with advantages such as low electricity prices and professional management. 

In the next few months, miners should consider that Mining companies will add more hash rates once they receive their future orders, affecting mining profitability. Altcoins, which provide different innovations, can be considered. Nevertheless, Bitcoin will be the core cryptocurrency from a long-term perspective.

Trends & Innovation: New Business Model and the Influx of Institutions

Gemini Asia Pacific Business Development Bureau Director Eugene Ng, Atlas Mining Founder Raymond Yuan, DMG CEO Sheldon Bennett, Clean Spark CEO Zachary Bradford, and Luxor Co-founder & CFO Ethan Vera discussed and predicted the mining trend and innovations at the second panel.

The panel pointed out the new trends in the mining industry. First, the cooling system's adoption leads to recent trends, as immersion cooling provides the same hash rate with less power consumption. Far more important, driven by the vigorous development of the Bitcoin mining industry and multiple favorable factors, many new investment institutions have entered the market, bringing in a new business model, i.e., the financialization of hash rate.

The influx of investors and institutions is just the beginning. When more speculators participate in the cryptocurrency mining field on a large scale, it will open the door for other digital currencies, and the cryptocurrency market will usher in more opportunities. Regarding technological innovation and application, topics were discussed at the panel around software upgrades, financial tools, and energy improvements to reduce mining costs.