This week in crypto. June 21-27: The Great Mining Migration, NFTs and more...
Crypto news
The Great Mining Migration
This week China, and Sichuan region in particular, precipitated mining ban announced months earlier, definitely setting in motion what some already call the Great Mining Migration. The country that until last year generated up to 65% of Bitcoin hashrate is now banning all professional mining farms, sending the total hashrate to last year’s levels.
Hashrate is a measure of the whole network’s computational power: the bigger it is, the harder it is to cheat on the blockchain (of course this only concerns PoW-based blockchains). Bitcoin is by far the most secure blockchain, with a hashrate of over 100 TH/s (terahash per second) – an absolutely huge number of “guesses” to get the Proof of Work of the following block.
The good news is that mining is a location-agnostic activity that necessitates only cheap (and preferably green) power and not too hostile regulations. So Chinese miners have choice.
Some of them, like BIT Mining, have already secured locations in the neighbouring Kazakhstan, where 320 mining rigs have already been delivered and the resting 2600 are expected before July 1st, adding appr 100 PH/s (petahash per second) to the network. BIT Mining also invested in locations in Texas, a crypto-friendly state offering lots of solar and windpower, as well as stranded gas from its oil fields. Stranded gas is an oil byproduct and it is often simply released into the atmosphere, which could be prevented by installing a crypto mining farm to capture and use it. Other miners can chose from hydropower plants in Canada or Georgia, volcano power plants in El Salvador and many other locations around the globe.
The Mining Migration has started, and even if it definitely will take time until the hashrate returns to its previous heights, it is for the best. Without big miners concentrated in China Bitcoin network will no longer fear centralization, and without mining in coal-rich Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Bitcoin carbon footprint should decrease dramatically.
Art and NFT
Non-Fungible Tokens development continues, with ever increasing number of actors realizing the great potential of a digital piece with unique ownership right attached. Last week we saw Fox Entertainment investing $100 M in Blockchain Creative Labs – a digital marketplace dedicated to commercializing characters, background art, and other NFTs related to the animated series Krapopolis by Dan Harmon, the creator of Rick and Morty.
This week Disney-owned Marvel Entertainment announced the launch of its official NFTs later this year.
Another remarkable project is being promoted by Beeple, a famous digital artist who notably sold his artpiece NFT for $69M. He helped launch We.new, a marketplace for NFTs of iconic moments in sports, politics, art, and fashion. Backed by such prominent media companies as TIME, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, We.new is another great idea of exploiting the NFTs.
Markets
Bitcoin
Bitcoin price lost 7% this week, plunging as low as $28’500 in the beginning, recovering to $34k afterwards.
As always, bears and bulls point out different aspects of the chart, the former expecting a further downhill movement, and the latter speaking about price consolidation within $30k -$41k price range – a necessary step for a healthy growth.
Whatever the short-term movements, Canadian investment fund called The Bitcoin Fund is determine to HODL, and with its debut on Nasdaq Dubai this week professional investors can buy its shares around the clock. Not to mention the native Middle Eastern capital.
Ethereum
Ethereum lost 12% this week, performing worse than Bitcoin – as did the majority of altcoins - lending just below $2k.
New article on D.Center
Blockchain is not only about currency, it can revolutionize so many other aspects of our lives. To fully understand this potential, as well as DApps mechanism or token creation, it is important to understand how smart contracts work on a blockchain.
Quote of the week
“Bitcoin thrives on adversity. Whatever they’re going to try to do, ultimately – and this is what’s different between Bitcoin and gold [and traditional financial assets] – Bitcoin’s clearance happens independently of political and banking systems. Therefore, you can’t really “ban” Bitcoin per se, you can only “ban yourself” from the network”,
Saifedean Ammous, economist and author of “The Bitcoin Standard”