From the outside looking in, it seems like a hard life earning a crust on the bitcoin mining breadline. Last year, when China imposed a blanket ban on the practice within its borders, a small army of miners hastily scrambled into action, powering down their machines, closing shop and redeploying their equipment overseas. Within a matter of months, China went from controlling two-thirds of all bitcoin mining worldwide to effectively exiting stage left. Cryptocurrency miners are nothing if not resilient, but in few other industries would one have to up sticks and move country just to keep the lights on. It isn’t a case of hopping across a land border either. At considerable expense, ousted miners had to ship many tonnes of equipment from mainland China to far-flung territories such as the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan and Canada. If China left a gaping void it has been hurriedly filled, with Kazakhstan in particular cultivating a reputation as a mining hub. Of course, things move fast in the much-maligned mining world. In recent weeks, Kazakh authorities have talked up significant tax increases for miners, some of whom are “severely damaging” the country’s energy system according to minister of digital development Bagdat Musin. The intrepid miners who made a home in the Central Asian Republic after being banished from China may soon be dusting off their passports, again. Sandra Ro, the CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council, speaking at the Senate Agriculture Hearing into cryptocurrencies in February addressed climate concerns related to bitcoin mining saying, “What we have today is actually an opportunity… mining has shifted to the U. S., Canada, and Nordic countries… [so, Congress] should encourage crypto mining firms to set up in an environment with (global) oversight, [to] champion the increase in renewables for the industry.”Against this chaotic backdrop, it’s worth asking where is bitcoin mining headed? Will more countries join China and others in imposing outright bans? Or will stances soften thanks to the efforts of the Bitcoin Mining Council and eco-friendly innovations like Bitmain’s liquid-cooled rig? Nothing less than the future of bitcoin is at stake, and with it the chance to exercise financial self-sovereignty via a decentralized cryptocurrency revered as digital gold. This, more that ever, in the current state of global political and economic volatility, is increasingly seen as a human right in the free world. Mining, of course, is the process that brings fresh bitcoin into being. The eponymous blockchain, which recently celebrated its 13th anniversary, depends on a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm that compels miners to solve mathematical problems that are difficult to solve but easy to verify. Amid fierce competition from rival miners, PoW math problems are tackled and deciphered in exchange for a set quantity of bitcoin known as a block subsidy.
All data is taken from the source: http://forbes.com
Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencewintermeyer/2022/03/13/what-does-the-future-hold-for-bitcoin-mining/
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