There’s news from the crypto mining world today as Cointelegraph and other outlets report a huge mining firm called Bitfury getting a huge influx of new venture capital. The release today shows a closed funding round netted Bitfury $80 million.
That’s a big election day present, as Americans go to the polls to try to make their mark on their federal government. It’s also good news for some investors who want to see this kind of funding take place, especially in the mining sector, in order to promote the idea that crypto markets will become stabilized in the future.
Bitfury’s current success isn’t the only indicator that crypto mining is coming into its own and having its day in court. An article from Sasha Konikovo at The Chain says that “laws are starting to catch up,” citing IRS activity and even market regulations in places like South Korea and China where so much Bitcoin mining is based.
In fact, Konikovo’s next point relates to that consolidation in China with the subtitle – “the openness of the mining market is closing pretty rapidly.”
“Perhaps the most telling of all signs the cryptocurrency market is maturing is the way that mining is growing increasingly exclusive,” Konikovo writes. “It used to be that mining Bitcoin wouldn’t take much effort or special equipment at all. Anyone could do it … However, as proof of work became increasingly demanding on CPUs, costs began to rise. These days, it’s very hard to turn a profit while mining Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency unless you already have a ton of startup capital.”
We know that Chinese mining pools account for over half of all Bitcoin mining activity – but why is that?
Take a look at this article last year from CoinBureau, and you can see that there are specific energy plays at work.
Bitcoin mining takes energy – lots of it. We hear about cryptojacking in the United States, where unscupled miners try to piggyback on thousands and thousands of individual devices to generate that kind of power. But they often get taken down when users realize their own apps are running slower than they’re supposed to.
In China, reveals the CoinBureau editorial team, things are different – Bitcoin miners can set up arrangements with power plant owners or managers and simply stream those massive amounts of power into mining activities. You’re really cutting out the middleman, and it’s hard for anybody else to compete with that. So as the market matures, it’s coming into fewer and fewer hands.
All this to say that market maturity and consolidation promises a way to make Bitcoin less of a “Wild West” venture and more of a solid long-term investment play. That belies the words of Nouriel Roubini and other detractors who think that cryptocurrency is indeed just a “flash in the pan” and not something that’s ever going to coalesce and stabilize.
But look for yourself – as you keep an eye on Bitcoin steadily floating around its center of $6,500, think about what it means to have market conditions slowly changing and becoming something that’s easier to regulate and easier to invest in – and keep looking for SEC activity on Bitcoin ETFs which is going to make a considerable difference.
