The buzz around Bitcoin continues to swell, and it is driven by a handful of different factors.
Tesla’s purchase of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin has pushed the price to new heights. Signs that other companies are warming up to cryptocurrencies are more abundant now than ever.
For example, just last week, Mastercard announced that it would begin supporting select cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, on its payment network.
Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of digital asset products at Mastercard, explained that “we are preparing right now for the future of crypto and payments, announcing that this year Mastercard will start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on our network. This is a big change that will require a lot of work.”
Prices of Bitcoin Continue to Rise
Overall, the price of Bitcoin more than quadrupled in 2020 and is up more than 60% since the start of this year.
The proliferation of cryptocurrencies in the more mainstream business infrastructure is often misunderstood by the public yet is also larger than most perceive.
According to a report by Allied Market Research, in a filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the retailing giant Walmart applied for a patent to use a digital coin tied to a traditional fiat currency, which could allow for cheaper and faster transactions as well as loyalty features.
In 2018, Intel won a patent for “Bitcoin Mining Hardware Accelerator with Optimized Message Digest and Message Scheduler Datapath.” In the filing, Intel outlined a method by which it could augment the existing bitcoin mining process, consuming less electricity, thereby, spending less money in the process.
Snipp Interactive Inc. (OTC: SNIPF) (TSX-V: SPN) announced last week that, the addition of new and innovative reward offerings to its SnippRewards incentive platform that address today’s hottest trends playing out in financial markets. Snipp now offers its clients a cutting edge financial reward as incentive to its end customers.
Bitcoin Gift Cards
Bitcoin gift-cards make it easy for our clients to award their customers with a cryptocurrency. By using a familiar and traditional gift-card system, anyone of any age can easily receive Bitcoins as a gift, a promotion incentive as well as exchange points in a loyalty program for Bitcoins.
With a Bitcoin gift-card, you can receive Bitcoins just like you would traditional gift-cards and in addition, securely deposit them into your crypto wallet or set up a new wallet for those who are not familiar with how crypto currencies work.
Our infrastructure and technical partnerships enable clients globally to offer cash back incentives in over 45 currencies. By adding a layer of crypto currency enabled incentives, Snipp will further enable not only our existing clients but also attract a new genre of clients to the Snipp platform that are looking to create fun, exciting and relevant incentives in the future.
“The team has been working diligently on the necessary integrations to enable financial rewards such as these over the course of the last year anticipating that fundamental changes are taking place in the world of financial markets and payment mechanisms,” said Atul Sabharwal, founder of Snipp. “In addition, as blockchain technologies become more permeated into the fabric of our society, this offering is also a small step we have taken to profitably support our blockchain initiatives and strategy as they pertain to the promotions, incentive and loyalty industry.”
What Other Companies Are Doing
Ebang International Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: EBON) announced earlier this month that the company has completed the designing of a chip for simultaneous Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (Doge) mining as an addition to its current portfolio of cryptocurrency mining chip designs.
Ebang executives believe the new design will allow the company to construct high performance cryptocurrency mining machines superior to other mining machines currently on the market.
“The completion of the designing is a credit to our increased investment in R&D in recent years,” said Dong Hu, chairman and CEO. “We have made tremendous efforts to build up our R&D team and accelerate product iteration and innovation. In the future, we will focus on developing more mainstream cryptocurrency mining machines, and we are considering designing more mining chips compatible with multiple cryptocurrencies. We believe it will help increase our revenue from the cryptocurrency mining business and optimize our product offering structure along the blockchain industry value chain.”
Increases in Mining Capabilities
Canaan Inc. (NASDAQ: CAN) announced last week that its revenue visibility has improved substantially in 2021 as a result of attaining purchase orders totaling more than 100,000 units of bitcoin mining machines from customers in North America.
Many of those purchase orders were placed with prepayment and will likely occupy the company’s current manufacturing capacity entirely for the full year of 2021 and beyond.
HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (OTCQX: HVBTF) reported an agreement to expand their Sweden GPU mining center at an estimated cost of $9 million, by April 2021.
By the end of 2021, HIVE plans a 30% increase in our Ethereum mining capacity. The immediate expansion of the operating footprint would be accomplished through an infrastructure re-fitting of a portion of its existing facility in Boden, Sweden at an estimated cost of $250,000. The purchase of new generation GPU chips and associated mining rigs to house them will cost about $8.75 million.
These new generation chips are expected to be more efficient than currently available GPU chips on the market while consuming less electricity, which should lead to continuing positive gross margins.
Argo Blockchain Plc (OTCQB: ARBKF) announced the acquisition of 320 acres of land in West Texas, USA, with access to 800-megawatts of electrical power where Argo intends to build a new 200mw mining facility in the next 12 months.
When completed, the facility will provide Argo with electricity at some of the lowest rates in the world, with the majority of its power coming from renewable sources.
