Bitcoin, the best-known and most popular cryptocurrency on the market, concentrates its largest amount of hash rate in China, but this could change in the not-too-distant future with the recent purchase of ASIC miners from Marathon Patent Group.
The mining company Bitcoin, Marathon Patent Group -one of the largest in the United States- has just made a new purchase of equipment ASIC mining last generation to Bitmain, the largest cryptocurrency mining equipment manufacturer and supplier in China and the world. According to the release From Marathon, the company acquired 70.000 new S-19 ASIC devices, with a total investment of 170 million dollars.
The delivery of the new equipment is scheduled for 2021 and will be carried out in several phases; with an initial delivery of 7.000 ASIC devices by July 2021 and the rest of the devices by the end of that year.
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10,36 EH/s of pure power in Bitcoin
With its recent acquisition, Marathon Patent Group is tripling its fleet of Bitcoin mining equipment, which currently stands at 33.000 ASICs. Now, the company will have a total of 103.000 ASIC devices, which will increase its computing power on the Bitcoin network to a total of 10,36 exahashes per second (EH/s). The President and CEO of Marathon Patent Group, Merrick Okamoto, noted that this is the largest purchase of ASIC equipment that Bitmain has received so far.
Okamoto noted that Bitmain is a powerful ally for the future development of Marathon, which aspires to become the largest mining company in North America and the world. Marathon made a purchase of 30.000 ASIC S-19 devices in August of this year and in September it acquired 3.000 new devices. During this purchase, Okamoto noted that the intention is to promote the growth, development and transformation of the company, consolidating its expansion plans.
For its part, Irene Gao, Antminer sales director for North, Central and South America (NCSA) at Bitmain, noted that Marathon has quickly become its largest customer globally and that the manufacturer aims to maintain its business relationship for a long time, for the benefit of both companies.
A broad vision of the future
Marathon has invested heavily in its mining business, purchasing several mining equipment to date, including: 10.500 ASIC -19 Pro, 10 ASIC Pro S-000J y 700 M31S+. All of these purchases were made in the last 6 months and effectively contribute to consolidating the company's growth and expansion plans.
China's leadership at stake?
Despite his unfriendly relationship with cryptocurrencies, , China is the country that concentrates the largest amount of hash rate of the global Bitcoin network worldwide. With between 60% and 65% of the computing power of this cryptocurrency in Chinese territory, many dare to point out that this is a kind of geographical centralization and are devising strategies to break this.
The concentration of Bitcoin hash rate power in China is due to nothing more than the low energy rates that are very attractive to mining companies around the world. However, the country's position regarding the digital industry has not been very favorable in recent years, which is why many companies are beginning to look for viable, and much friendlier, alternatives with their activities for their growth and development.
In addition to Marathon, other mining companies outside China are making significant investments in the acquisition of mining equipment, in order to expand the Bitcoin hash rate to other jurisdictions. For example, Core Scientific, an infrastructure company blockchain and artificial intelligence based in the United States, recently announced the purchase with Bitmain of no less than 59.000 next-generation ASIC equipment, a purchase that will help expand its Bitcoin mining capacity in the region. With this acquisition, Core Scientific will bring together a total of 76.000 S19 ASIC devices outside of China, raising its hash rate to a total of 7,26 EH/s.
On the other hand, the Bitcoin developer, Jeff Garzik, together with Ryan Condron, software developer for mining pools, and Matthew Roszak, co-founder of Bloq and former president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, founded Titan Pool, with the vision of reducing China's leadership over Bitcoin's hash rate.
With all of these initiatives developing outside of China, it is likely that in the future we will see a more equitable distribution of Bitcoin's computing power in the world.
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