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Aspen Creek Launches First Solar-Powered Bitcoin Mining Facility in Colorado
Aspen Creek Digital Corporation ("ACDC"), a U.S.-based crypto mining firm, announced on Thursday that it has launched Bitcoin mining at a six-megawatts solar-powered facility in the western part of Colorado.
Aspen said its mining operation is co-located at a solar farm that has a capacity of 10 megawatts. While the miner intends to begin with Bitcoin mining at its data centre, it plans to eventually provide computing services to other businesses.
The Colorado data centre will run S19 Bitcoin mining machines and be co-located with a 75,000-square-foot research-and-development centre and fulfillment facility, Aspen said. The facility will serve as centralized testing, maintenance, storage, and training hub for the company's computing infrastructure.
Founded in January, Aspen is entering the industry at a time when existing miners are facing difficulty to remain profitable with the current plunge in crypto prices.
Alexandra DaCosta, CEO of Aspen Creek Digital Corporation, commented: "Recent market volatility has demonstrated the importance of our core strategy: controlling power as the principal input in bitcoin mining. The success of our first project is proof of our concept to substantially lower the cost of energy, the single largest input for bitcoin mining, and to do it sustainably. Our talented team and partners will dramatically improve the sustainability of the industry while building strong partnerships with local communities, delivering carbon transparency, and enhancing grid resiliency." Read More
Uganda’s gold discovery: What it could mean for crypto
Is gold becoming inflationary? Can Bitcoin replace it as a store of value due to its scarcity and reliability? Are Uganda’s numbers implausible? Questions arise.
These are fraught times for the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector, so it isn’t surprising that industry proponents might seize upon any promising news to help charge flagging markets. A Reuters report out of Uganda last week about a massive gold ore discovery supplied just this kind of fuel.
What does the state of gold mining in Africa have to do with the price of global Bitcoin (BTC)? Quite a bit, potentially.
Bitcoin has periodically laid claim to being digital gold largely on the strength of its strict 21 million supply limit, which makes it non-inflationary and a good store of value — in theory. Gold, of course, is the store of value par excellence, with a limited supply and a solid track record that goes back millennia.
But, if Uganda is sitting on 31 million metric tons of gold ore, as the government declared, might not that substantially boost the world’s gold supply? That in turn could lower the price of gold — and make it a less secure “store of value” generally. Gold’s loss could be the cryptocurrency’s gain. Read More
Why Solana Is Going Big on Mobile—And Making a Smartphone
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko tells Decrypt about its new SMS platform and Android phone, the Solana Saga.
Solana’s teasers leading up to yesterday’s “SMS” event suggested something to do with mobile, but few could have imagined the twist that was announced in New York City. Yes, Solana Labs has built a mobile software platform… but it’s also releasing a smartphone.
Solana Labs yesterday revealed the Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) software kit, which provides tools for developing native Android mobile apps, walls, and games, and also includes a decentralized app store. The company also revealed the Saga, a powerful Android smartphone that will be released in early 2023.
Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana and CEO of Solana Labs, told Decrypt that his team has been working on the SMS push for about five months, and the hardware itself for a bit longer. But the idea of improving Web3 access and functionality on mobile has been in his head for years, particularly given his past experience as a Qualcomm engineer.
“What does it look like with 1 billion people using [crypto]? What do you imagine? It's in this device—the device you use everyday,” he said, holding up the Solana Saga prototype. “That has to be your hardware wallet. That's just something that we always felt.” Read More
Cardano (ADA) Founder Charles Hoskinson Addresses Congress, Argues for Real-World Uses of Crypto and Blockchain
Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson is addressing Congress in an attempt to detail the real-world use cases of crypto assets.
In a prepared testimony to Congress on the topic of digital asset regulation, Hoskinson says blockchain technology helps marketplaces thrive due to its decentralized and permissionless nature.
“Distributed ledgers (i.e., blockchains) store information that needs to be transparent, auditable, timestamped and immutable. This process enables records of social and economic concerns to be reliable and programmable.
Public blockchains, just like many commodities, are intrinsically decentralized and permissionless. For example, I grow hay on my farm in Colorado. I did not ask for permission to plant and harvest my hay, and now I am a member of a global, dynamic marketplace. There are regulations and controls in all of these markets, but we do not assume there is a centralized hay agency to ensure somehow this market works.
Such absurdities were reserved for the Soviet central planners of old, not modern economies. Blockchain projects operate and embody this decentralized ethos and would fail under the weight of a heavy-handed and outdated regulatory structure.” Read More
Because of Solana’s POH method, it can horizontally scale the rest of the blockchain, the same way that operating systems and databases scale their software. Each Solana team member has over a decade of experience working in operating systems GPU acceleration. Compilers, networks, etc., giving them extensive and deep experience optimizing software.
Solana is based on scaling software with hardware, with the vision of building the world's largest decentralized, single chart blockchain. The only way to do that is by scaling all the core technologies with hardware.
Scaling the Blockchain in this way delivers a cheap cryptographic base for financial transfers and, more importantly, outside of finance. It is a way for Solana to build a better web experience for social media communities regarding micropayments.
Also, advertising-based revenues can be relinquished for social networks, leading communities to generate value by self-expression, creating their own content, and growing the network and the connections within the community, creating a better world for all. Read More
Unsure if fine art or a luxury watch is real? This blockchain-based project has your back
This blockchain platform produces certificates of authenticity for real-world items that use a luxury object's own biometric features.
A Swiss foundation is using blockchain technology to authenticate artwork, luxury goods, digital media, and collectibles — protecting the interests of consumers while returning control to creators.
In an ask-me-anything session on Cointelegraph's YouTube channel, ORIGYN CEO Daniel Haudenschild described how his organization's technology is helping to clamp down on counterfeits and increase confidence in upmarket items.
Ultra-high-resolution pictures of an item are taken and rich metadata is then packed into a nonfungible token. "Microstructure traceability" is used so computers can recognize distinctive objects later on — making distinctions the human eye cannot.
"Not just 'it's a watch' or 'it's a handbag' — down to the serial number and down to the unique item," Haudenschild explained.
Physical items that go through ORIGYN's process are subsequently awarded with a certificate of authenticity — and a guarantee to buyers that, if an item isn't genuine, insurance will pay for the damages. Read More
Hex Trust Announces Integration of Polkadot Blockchain Network
Hong Kong-based digital asset custody provider Hex Trust announced the integration of the Polkadot blockchain network into Hex Safe.
Following the integration, Hex Trust now provides fully licensed custody for Polkadot’s native token (DOT). Hex Trust also has plans to support a full stack of services built on Polkadot.
“With this integration, we will be offering fully-licensed & highly secure custody for $DOT and the full stack of services built on the leading interoperability blockchain network,” Hex Trust said on Twitter.
Furthermore, the integration will enable the company’s more than 200 institutional clients to trade, lend and stake DOT without sending their assets outside the secure custody platform Hex Safe.
According to Hex Trust’s official website, Hex Safe helps users secure and manage digital assets with a compliance-first approach.
Hex Safe also provides access to liquidity providers, exchanges, and industry-leading DeFi platforms. Read More
Pocket Network Advances Its Multichain Strategy With Latest Milestone
Pocket has its sight on the century mark – with 100 blockchains supported by the end of 2022.
Pocket Network, an infrastructure middleware protocol which facilitates decentralized multichain blockchain access to developer applications in Web3, including Ethereum, Polygon, Gnosis Chain, Avalanche, Solana, Fuse, Fantom, and Near, recently marked a significant milestone in its multichain strategy with 50 supported blockchains on its network after integrating Moonbeam and Moonriver blockchains. Pocket has its sight on the century mark – with 100 blockchains supported by the end of 2022.
Pocket Network Supports 50 Blockchains:
Michael O’Rourke, Co-founder and CEO of Pocket Network, said:
“As we see developer demand drive more activity and apps to a wider variety of blockchains, interoperability challenges, as well as latency and reliability, from centralized infrastructure providers will continue to grow. With our multichain strategy, we are positioned to cement Pocket as the true decentralized, full-node RPC protocol in the industry.”
The real breakthrough of a multichain network is in the utility this brings to Web3 developers. This is especially true with the streamlined Pocket Portal that developers can access to deploy apps to any of Pocket’s 50 supported blockchains. This interface vastly simplifies developers’ abilities to connect with any chain of their choosing and provides a one-stop RPC solution with an instantaneous process to get an endpoint, an analytics dashboard, and app notifications to monitor performance. Read More
Central African Republic president launches crypto initiative following Bitcoin adoption
The Sango project’s plans include building a "legal crypto hub," expanding the adoption of Bitcoin and creating a “crypto island” — a special economic zone in the metaverse.
Faustin-Archange Touadéra, president of the Central African Republic, has announced the government will be backing an initiative centered around developing the country’s blockchain infrastructure.
In a Monday announcement on Twitter, Touadéra said the CAR government would be launching Sango, a crypto initiative proposed following the country’s adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in April. According to Sango’s website, the government intends to launch the program during a July 3 event in which the president, members of his cabinet, and industry experts will discuss the physical and digital infrastructure needed for the CAR to enter the crypto space, as well as the legal framework for the country.
The Sango project’s plans include building a “legal crypto hub” aimed at attracting businesses and global crypto-enthusiasts, expanding the adoption of Bitcoin in the country, and creating a virtual “crypto island” — a special economic zone in the metaverse that will seemingly have an equivalent space in the physical world. According to Sando, the CAR plans to have a dedicated legal framework for crypto in place by the end of 2022.
“The ambitious strategy to quickly build a successful economy can only rely on new technologies that have taken the world by storm and taken money to another level, with Bitcoin as a watchword,” said Touadéra. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
