HIVE Blockchain to explore Ethereum options for pre-merger mining

One of the industry’s largest crypto mining companiesHIVE Blockchain, announced today that it hit record production numbers for crypto mining throughout August.

The cryptominer claims to have unlocked an average cryptohaul of about 9.4 Bitcoin (~$187,500) and 97th Ethereum (~$161,000) per day. At today’s prices, HIVE claims to generate nearly $350,000 in crypto every day.

HIVE says it produced a total of 3,010 ETH in August, worth nearly $5 million. This makes up the lion’s share of the firm’s 5,100 Ethereum holdings.

The company is also expected to diversify its mining portfolio ahead of Ethereum’s long-awaited network overhaul, dubbed “the merger.”

The upgrade will transition the blockchain from using one proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism, where miners with the most computing power mine the most crypto, to a 99.95% greener proof of effort (PoS) algorithm, where those who stake the most Ethereum validate the most transactions.

However, after the merger, HIVE’s mining rigs using GPU cards will no longer be suitable for the PoS version of Ethereum.

The company is now looking to put them to work elsewhere and in my theory can Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Monero, Dogecoinand others.

The firm “has already started mining analysis of other GPU-minable coins with its fleet of GPUs, and is implementing beta testing this week, before merge“, read today’s announcement.

Decrypt reached out to the miner for comment on these other coins, but did not receive a response prior to publication.

HIVE also reported that profit margins were “marginally impacted” by 9.26% jump in Bitcoin mining difficulties and a 4.4% increase in Ethereum mining difficulties in the last month.

The company also holds 3,258 Bitcoin, meaning that HIVE’s crypto assets today stand at approximately $73.3 million, making it the third largest cryptominer behind Core Scientific and Marathon Digital Holdings, according to Bitcoin Treasurywho have not yet updated their HIVE data with today’s figures.

HIVE leaves competition behind

Crypto’s current bear market has cost crypto miners a lot this year.

Data from Arcane Research revealed that IPOs Bitcoin miners, such as Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain, sold more Bitcoin than they mined in May – a huge change from the first four months of the year when miners sold just 30% of their earnings.

In July there was one Update for Core Scientific’s investors said the NASDAQ-listed mining company sold 7,202 Bitcoins last month at an average price of $23,000, giving it just 1,959 Bitcoins.

The massive sales were to cover increased fixed costs at a time of “historical inflation“, said CEO Mike Levitt.

In July, crypto miner Argo Blockchain PLC released an operating report for June that revealed it had become the latest Bitcoin miner to sell more Bitcoin than was mined in a month.

Earlier this year, Argo and CleanSpark both had to secure tens of millions of dollars in loans to acquire more mining equipment.