Vancouver’s Hut 8 Mining Corp has announced plans to create “North America’s largest bitcoin mining datacenters”. The ambitious plan will see the Canadian firm partner with mining specialists Bitfury. It will provide hardware, software and maintenance. Even though they need to raise funds, the deal is expected to be completed in 2018.
Bitfury gives the Canadian mining company the option to purchase datacenters exclusively from them. As it stands, Hut 8 evidently lacks the funds to bring the project to completion. As a consequence, it’s offering 13.2 million shares via GMP Securities LP, which have been valued at U.S. $26 million.
In a statement released December 4, Hut 8 revealed details of a multi-stage process. In order to dominate the American cryptocurrency mining industry, the project will start with the acquisition of 22 datacenters. These will provide the British Columbia firm with over 24 MW of hashing power. For the second phase of the deal we will see an additional 35 datacenters, packing 38.5 MW.
If the deal will be completed, which should occur sometime in 2018, Hut 8 will have the largest mining operation in North America. It will have a total output of over 60 MW. Aside from successfully live testing bitcoin transactions on the Lightning Network, Bitfury is best known for its mining rigs.
We can see how far cryptocurrency mining has come from the days when it was accessible to hobbyists and small-scale mining pools. Geographically the Bitfury and Hut 8 represents a shift in power. With new mining operations about to spring up in Russia, Northern Europe, and North America, China’s grip on the mining game may be slipping. Mining evolves at a constantly higher rate among private people and big companies as well. Even though for a normal person the initial investment for bitcoin mining is high, many still choose mining over short trading or other much riskier practices.
