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Digital payment firm Square has partnered with Bitcoin technology startup Blockstream to launch a 100% solar-powered Bitcoin mine in the United States. 

The firms will also publicize details about economics of the project as well as metrics reflecting the mine’s performance, according to a June 5 release from Square and Blockstream. 

The new initiative is a part of Square’s pledge to be carbon neutral in its Bitcoin activity by 2030. As part of that commitment, which the firm made in December, Square promised to fund Bitcoin projects that reduce Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. It will provide $5 million in funds for the facility and Blockstream will provide the infrastructure for the mining farm.

The announcement is just the latest in a series of commitments from crypto companies to address the climate impact of their business.

In March, crypto mining firm Argo and blockchain tech company DMG announced their upcoming hydro-powered Bitcoin mining operation, for instance. Other firms, such as the market maker GSR and digital asset hedge fund One River, have promised to offset their carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits.

The new solar-powered mine will “serve as an ongoing transparent case study that will allow us to all learn together the specific unit economics of clean energy Bitcoin mining,” Neil Jorgensen, who heads global environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) at Square, said in a statement

“We can’t wait to start sharing our results with the community.”

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• Artists using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to sell their work have been the target of backlash from climate activists who argue that blockchain-based art emits too much carbon dioxide.
• What is the carbon footprint of an NFT? The answer is as philosophical as it is technical.

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The U.S. Department of Justice said Monday that they have recovered “a majority” of the bitcoin funds paid after a ransomware attack against an American pipeline operator.

Colonial Pipeline was hit by the ransomware attack in early May, triggering a temporary shutdown and an East Coast gas shortage across U.S. states in that region. It was later confirmed that Colonial paid 75 BTC, or about $5 million at then-current prices. Some of those funds were later sent to crypto exchanges as well as the dark web market Hydra for cash-outs.

On Monday, deputy U.S. attorney general Lisa Monaco said that an operation was conducted Monday to recover some of the funds. The exact amount wasn’t disclosed, but Monaco characterized the amount as “a majority.” The operation was conducted by a task force dedicated to digital extortion and ransomware established in April. It is unclear at present how exactly the funds were recovered.

“After Colonial Pipeline’s quick notification to law enforcement, and pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California earlier today, the Department of Justice has found and recaptured the majority of the ransom Colonial paid to the Dark Side Network in the wake of last month’s ransomware attack,” Monaco said during a press conference.

U.S. officials, including those in the Biden White House, have become increasingly vocal about ransomware — and cryptocurrency — in recent days. Earlier this month, a White House press official identified “expanding cryptocurrency analysis” as part of a broader focus on ransomware.

On Monday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the topic would be up for discussion during an upcoming G7 meeting.

In her remarks, Monaco issued a warning to U.S. companies about the threat to their operations.

“Pay attention now. Invest the resources now. Failure to do so could be the difference between being secure now or a victim later,” Monaco said.

This is a developing story and more details will be added as information is obtained.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

In a White House press briefing on Monday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan addressed growing concerns over ransomware and the increasingly visible strikes against high-profile companies and public infrastructure in recent weeks. 

Specifically, in response to a question as to goals on ransomware for an upcoming G7 summit, Sullivan said that the administration was hoping to come away with “the start of an action plan that covers a number of critical areas.”

One of those areas Sullivan identified was “[h]ow to deal with the cryptocurrency challenge which lies at the core of how these ransomware attacks are carried out.”

“Ransomware is a national security priority,” Sullivan continued, echoing comments that various members of the White House have made in recent weeks. 

The temporary shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline last month as well as the more recent attack on meat producer JBS have brought ransomware to the center of the global stage. The administration particularly blames Russian cybercriminal organizations.

Sullivan’s comments today came on the heels of questions as to the wisdom of President Biden meeting with President Putin amid escalating tensions and overarching suspicion that these criminal groups are operating with at the least the tacit consent of the Russian government. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Chinese bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Canaan has set up its first overseas after-sales service center in Kazakhstan.

In a statement shared with The Block on Monday, Canaan said the center would help provide local customers after-sales services such as machine testing and maintenance, warranty services, and technical consultations.

“The establishment of the service center in Kazakhstan is strategic in expanding our after-sales geographical coverage and providing faster and easier access to support our growing international customer base,” said Canaan chairman and CEO Nangeng Zhang.

Canaan’s global customer base is indeed expanding. As The Block reported last week, 78% of Canaan’s Q1 2021 sales came from the overseas market. That is a significant jump from Q1 2020 when the share of its overseas market was just around 5%.

As for Kazakhstan, its crypto mining industry is booming, thanks to one of the cheapest electricity rates in the country. Kazakhstan is currently the fourth-largest bitcoin mining country in the world, with a 6% share in the global bitcoin hash rate, according to Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. Canaan itself is preparing to launch a crypto mining business in Kazakhstan.

Last September, Kazakhstan was looking to attract investments worth 300 billion tenge (over $700 million) into its domestic mining sector.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

One of the largest trading firms making markets on the New York Stock Exchange announced last week that it is breaking into the decentralized finance space by joining a Solana-based market data project. 

GTS — best-known for facilitating large initial public offerings on NYSE — joined Pyth Network, a data project led by high-speed trading firm Jump Trading. Announced by Jump in April, Pyth is essentially a platform that aggregates Wall Street’s market data on the Solana blockchain. Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX is also involved with the project. 

Market data is the lifeblood for traders and has been a contentious issue on the Street. Historically trading firms have slammed large exchange venues—such as NYSE and Nasdaq—for unfairly increasing the cost of market data. In a sense, Pyth serves as a decentralized stream of market data that can be accessed through Solana. 

GTS plans to push its own market data onto Pyth through a node it will independently run, “furthering Pyth’s vision of having first-hand, real-time pricing available on high performance blockchains,” according to a press release. 

“Real-time market data content across asset classes will be a giant step forward for developing decentralized finance/“DeFi” applications,” Ari Rubenstein, co-founder and CEO of GTS, said in a statement. “For DeFi applications to mature, the sophisticated integration of asset pricing that GTS excels in is an imperative. Our participation in the Pyth Network lends a solution to a long-standing gap in real-time public blockchain distribution of financial data.”

The team behind Solana is said to be raising as much as $450 million in new funding. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Experts say the United Kingdom’s central bank is proceeding with caution as it continues to explore the potential ramifications of new forms of digital currency.

“The Bank of England is taking pains to tread carefully. But the more energy the Bank spends on this question, the more likely it is that we will see some form of a digital pound made reality,” said Richard Hay, U.K. head of fintech at Linklaters, the law firm.

Monday morning, the Bank of England published an in-depth discussion paper encompassing topics ranging from the prospect of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to stablecoins. The paper poses a series of questions about the role and potential impact of such currencies, with readers invited to respond by September 7.

Sarah Coles, an analyst at the investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, said the Bank is in “no hurry” to move into digital currencies, because “it needs to be sure that creating its own digital currency wouldn’t do more harm than good.”

Etay Katz, a partner at the law firm Ashurst, agreed that “it is right that there is a careful reflection before adding money substitutes or digital money schemes to the mainstream,” but warned that hesitation “will increase the risk of less thought through schemes gaining prominence with potential systemic perils.”

Further exploration

Within the paper, the Bank said it would deepen its exploration into whether to issue a digital version of the pound – a so-called Britcoin.

“A CBDC could play an important role in sustaining, and potentially expanding, retail access to central bank money,” the Bank stated in the paper. But a final decision remains some way off, it stressed, despite its recent efforts to beef up its CBDC expertise.

Another key takeaway from the paper was the action on stablecoins mooted by the Bank. The Bank acknowledged the potential for stablecoins – a form of digital currency pegged to the value of fiat currencies – “to become widely used as a means of retail payment.”

But it also stated that stablecoin payments should be regulated in the same way as bank payments if that potential is realised.

“Further work will be required to consider the resolution arrangements for systemic stablecoins. And further work will also be needed on any changes to Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection, in discussion with other authorities and as part of any wider regulatory review,” the Bank stated.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his negative stance on bitcoin during a Monday morning interview, declaring that “it just seems like a scam.”

Speaking with Fox Business’s Stu Varney, Trump said:

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam. I was surprised — you know, with us, it was at 6,000 and, much lower. I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar, essentially it’s a currency competing against the dollar. I want the dollar to the currency of the world. That’s what I’ve always said.”

In 2019, Trump — as president — blasted bitcoin and cryptocurrency during a tweet thread. As reported at the time, Trump took aim at Facebook and Libra, now known as Diem, the long-delayed stablecoin project that drew the ire of regulators and lawmakers in the U.S.

“I’m not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” Trump said at the time. It’s unclear whether Trump’s thinking on the matter has evolved, given that he referred to bitcoin as a “currency” during the Monday interview.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Nasdaq-listed MicroStrategy said Monday that it plans to raise $400 million via senior secured notes — a type of debt offering — and use the net proceeds of that offering to buy more bitcoin.

MicroStrategy today has also announced two new entities — MicroStrategy Services Corporation and MacroStrategy LLC.

MicroStrategy Services Corporation will guarantee the new notes and secure them with the bitcoin that it would acquire.

“The notes will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed on a senior secured basis, jointly and severally, by MicroStrategy Services Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MicroStrategy, and certain subsidiaries of MicroStrategy that may be formed or acquired after the closing of the offering,” said MicroStrategy.

“The notes and the related guarantees will be secured, on a senior secured basis with MicroStrategy’s existing and future senior indebtedness, by security interests on substantially all of MicroStrategy’s and the guarantors’ assets, including any bitcoins or other digital assets acquired on or after the closing of the offering, but excluding MicroStrategy’s existing bitcoins as well as bitcoins and digital assets acquired with the proceeds from existing bitcoins.”

The company’s existing 92,079 bitcoin, worth about $3.4 billion, on the other hand, will be held by MacroStrategy LLC.

This is a developing story and will be updated…

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

One of China’s central government ministries has set out high-level guidelines dedicated to fostering blockchain development in the country.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published directional guidelines on Monday in its aim to “accelerate blockchain technology applications and industrial development” together with the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission.

The guidelines serve as a high-level instruction to the country’s information technology offices in provincial and municipal governments. It puts forth long-term goals to build blockchain companies and applications that can empower different sectors of the country’s economy as part of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s Digital China strategy.

Critical tasks under the MIIT’s guidelines include applying blockchain technology to improve public services, protecting digital intellectual properties and increasing transparency in government data sharing and legal deposition.

To execute the high-level guidelines, local governments are being instructed to provide both political and economic support. This includes building blockchain industrial parks, offering tax benefits for blockchain startups and increasing funding to foster talents in the blockchain technology field.

With the latest central government direction, China appears to be rehashing its ‘yes-blockchain-no-crypto’ narrative. The guidelines come following a recent comment brought up in a central government committee meeting about cracking down on bitcoin trading and mining activities. 

Over the past weekend, more than two dozens of crypto influencers and blockchain media outlets on Chinese social media Weibo have suddenly had their accounts suspended.

The names of most of the suspended accounts included terms such as bitcoin, btc, or coin. Some suspended accounts also had the term “blockchain” but actively posted information that related to the crypto market sentiment.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.