Get your daily, bite-sized digest of crypto and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s news.
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- A public mining company mined bitcoin for free in Q3, according to the latest Miner Weekly report by BlocksBridge Consulting. It said that Riot Platforms reported a negative $6.1k cost for mining bitcoin (BTC) due to the power curtailment credits it received in Texas, USA. Riot’s cost of bitcoin mining revenue totaled $24.4 million over the last quarter, the majority of which were power bills. From July to September, it mined 1,102 BTC, resulting in a cost of production of $22,177 per BTC. But Riot participated in Texas’ demand response and ancillary service program and turned off a large portion of its proprietary hashrate to help strengthen the grid – receiving nearly $50 million in power curtailment credits that can be allocated to offset the power bills in its bitcoin mining and hosting segments. Because the amount of credits allocated to the bitcoin mining segment was $31.2 million, the cost of bitcoin mining revenue was hence reduced to -$6.8 million on its book. The report said that the negative cost of production does not seem to suggest Riot received additional cash benefits on top of the bitcoin mined, but that the company mined the bitcoin for free and still had remaining credits. “It is unclear, though, how the remaining credits could be extended to the next quarter — if at all,” it added.
- North American mining company US Bitcoin Corp (USBTC) announced the progression of its merger with Hut 8 Mining Corp (Hut 8). According to the press release, USBTC is moving forward with its all-stock merger with Hut 8 after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) declared the registration statement related to the merger effective on November 9. The merger is expected to close by November 30, 2023, after which the common stock of the combined company, Hut 8 Corp. (New Hut), is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the proposed ticker symbol HUT.
- Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer announced that it has become a preferred cloud service provider (CSP) in the NVIDIA Partner Network and plans to launch Bitdeer AI Cloud, among the first cloud services powered by NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with DGX H100 systems in the Asia region. According to the press release, the service will provide Bitdeer’s customers with access to NVIDIA AI supercomputing to help them accelerate their development of generative artificial intelligence (AI), large language models (LLMs), and other AI workloads. Bitdeer’s GPU cloud service builds on the company’s extensive customer reach in Asia, it said and added: “Paired with its domain expertise in hash rate-sharing and cloud services, the service can equip businesses and entrepreneurs with state-of-the-art computing using the NVIDIA DGX platform.”
- The Sandbox, a decentralized gaming virtual world and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, announced Gucci Cosmos Land, a digital extension of the current London exhibition designed by Es Devlin with a special curation of iconic designs from the Gucci Archive by Maria Luisa Frisa. Set in a Web3 London reinvented for Gucci, the exhibition is a journey through Gucci’s past, present, and future. Each section traces a different aspect of Gucci, the announcement said. Gucci Cosmos Land is described as “an immersive journey that spirals through decades of creativity and lets users explore the House’s history through its iconic designs and key themes.”
- Layer 1 public blockchain Vechain launched a new Learn 2 Earn program designed exclusively for crypto exchange Coinbase users. Per the announcement, the Learn Campaign is multi-pronged, comprising simple and advanced tasks. Simple Learn consists of two educational quizzes, each of which rewards users with $1 in VET for a correct answer. Advanced Learn requires users to download and interact with VeWorld, after which they explore applications in the vechain ecosystem. They can earn $10 for completion of this program. Users can participate in either program or both, earning up to $12 in VET rewards. The new program follows the listing of vechain’s native tokens VET and VTHO on Coinbase earlier this year.
- Moflix Group, a telecommunications company providing digital solutions, raised a $3.1 million seed funding round with the participation from The Hashgraph Association (THA), the Swiss-based non-profit organization accelerating the adoption of the Hedera network, alongside other strategic investors. Per the press release, THA’s funding and engineering expertise will help Moflix refine and extend its Web3 offering to telecom companies. Its TelcoTech platform combines digital connectivity propositions with a wide range of digital tech capabilities, it said. The company aims to pave the way for the next generation of digital services with features for telcos that include management of Web3 assets through a digital wallet and trusted digital identity credentials. “THA’s financial commitment and engineering expertise will enable Moflix to explore ways of incorporating Hedera’s technology into its offering, empowering telcos to offer infrastructure, platforms, applications, and user experiences for a Web3-enabled world,” according to the press release.
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