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Chinese cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain confirmed it would roll out a firmware update for so-called ‘Overt AsicBoost’ to all its Antminer models in a blog post Monday, Oct. 22. Bitmain, which holds a monopoly on Bitcoin mining through its subsidiary mining pools BTC.com and Antpool, said the release would begin with its most recent Antminer S9 product, extending to older versions next week. Overt AsicBoost refers to a method of increasing mining “effectiveness” for Antminers, Bitmain says, in a way that does not produce “any negative impact on the Bitcoin protocol.” “Initially, we decided against activating this mathematical function in mining hardware produced by us, largely because of the legal uncertainty surrounding the use of AsicBoost,” the post reads: “As an organization, we didn’t want to violate patent laws or act in any way that was untoward.” Bitmain garnered a slew of criticism beginning in 2017 over AsicBoost, with Bitcoin Core developers in particular v...

Vague statements in Chinese mining giant Bitmain Technologies ’ investor deck ambiguously and potentially misleadingly list investors ahead of its rumored Initial Public Offering (IPO). In a Bitmain pre-IPO investor deck acquired by Cointelegraph, DST Global is listed as an investor, with claims that the investment is “recently completed.”  Henry Wu, a lawyer and legal expert at Chinese law firm L&Y Law Office, spoke with Cointelegraph, explaining that the document’s wording in the original Chinese is left vague. While it is possible to dispute the meaning, to the layperson or an uninitiated potential investor, the language would suggest Bitmain has acquired funds from DST Global. Earlier today, John Lindfors, a managing partner at DST Global, said in an email to Cointelegraph that he “can confirm that DST has never invested in Bitmain.” Wu said that if an investor used the information that DST Global invested in Bitmain to decide whether to contribute their own fund...

An effort to keep the $200 billion siacoin blockchain free from corporate interests is devolving into chaos amid accusations against the companies at the center of the effort. At issue is the conduct of the protocol’s coders, and the motivations behind their push to alter the rules of the blockchain they maintain. With a proposal, introduced last week, developers including siacoin creator David Vorick have floated changes that would keep some mining equipment operators from earning value by securing the distributed storage protocol. Simply put, the code would fork siacoin so that products offered by Bitmain, the China-based firm on the verge of an initial public offering , and its competitor Innosilicon, would be disabled. But while such efforts have been met with enthusiasm on other blockchains, satisfying concerns about how such changes could impact the balance of power on their networks, there’s just one problem – in the case of siacoin, the equipment that would still work is ...

Graphics chip manufacturing giant Nvidia saw huge growth in late 2017 and throughout most of 2018 as demand for its high-end Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), used for cryptocurrency mining, skyrocketed. The recent bear market has caused demand for GPUs to dwindle, leaving Nvidia to readjust its strategy. Nvidia In Its Heyday It seems Nvidia is throwing in the towel on the development and production of its cryptocurrency mining focused graphics cards and chips. Nvidia has seen some explosive growth over the last few years and is currently seeing a 68% increase in value in the past year alone (indicated below in yellow), although this week the stock price has slipped almost eight percent (indicated below in red). Nvidia’s biggest rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also saw record highs recently, gaining more than 100% in just the past quarter. Nvidia was especially successful riding the waves of the huge cryptocurrency boom of November and December, gaining an impressive 42% f...

Cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain continues to gain attention over its initial public offering (IPO) as critics raise the alarm over its financial outlook. Bitcoin Cash Bets As Bitcoinist reported at the end of July, the manufacturer announced its plans to hold a $14 billion IPO before the end of 2018, having achieved Q1 profits of over $1 billion. Since then, data about the offering to pre-IPO investors have raised suspicions over Bitmain’s prospects, doubts specifically focusing over its huge reserves of altcoin Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which would remain illiquid unless markets transformed prior to the IPO date. “According to the Bitmain pre-IPO investor deck, they sold most of their [Bitcoin] for [Bitcoin Cash],” Blockstream CSO Samson Mow wrote on Twitter August 11. The Bitmain IPO is incredibly risky for any investor to buy into. The potential for massive losses are just around the corner as they have no idea how to maintain BCH, but are all-in. Play stupid games, win stu...