A Bitcoin crypto mining operation has been established in Bradford.
DMint Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OLB, announced Tuesday that it has expanded its Bitcoin mining operation with the addition of five hundred (500) Antminer S19j Pro cryptocurrency mining computers at its Bradford location.
DMint anticipates having a total of 1,000 computers in operation in Bradford by the end of 2021 and projects to reach 24,000 Bitcoin mining computers — in various locations — in the next 24 months.
DMint executive Bessie Cai explained that the operation is located off of Interstate Parkway.
Cai stated, “The 1,000 mining computers will consume about 5 Megawatts of electricity. We will be utilizing local natural gas resources to power our on site generators. This means our site will not be connected to the local power grid; our activities will have no effect on local power consumption or utility costs. Additionally, because we will be generating our own power, we will be protected from potential outages.”
OLB announced in August that they had signed an exclusive agreement to purchase all-natural gas yield from wells in Bradford through Cai Energy Blockchain. The release noted that the environmental impact footprint of the cryptocurrency mining operation will be close to zero as the natural gas will be taken directly from the well heads to generate electricity.
When asked, Cai said that although operations are scaling up rapidly, there are not necessarily any plans for expansion beyond the 1,000 computer goal.
She did note that the location does have the potential to “easily be expanded to 30MW to power another 5,000 mining computers.”
With DMint’s overall goal of 24,000 computers in the Pennsylvania and New York region within 24 months, there are a few locations under consideration for future expansion.
“We believe our operation will be bringing jobs and enhancing the local economy tremendously,” Cai said.
With those 24,000 computers, the company hopes to to build out capacity to achieve 2.4 exahash per second. According to Blockchain.com, the current average rate is 150.4M terahashes (one trillion hashes per second). One exahash is one quintillion hashes per second.
The mining hashrate is a security metric, with greater security and resistance to a cyber attack with a higher hashing power. The hashing power is determined by estimating the number of blocks mined in the previous 24 hour period and taking into account the block difficulty.
One method of cryptocurrency authentication, called “proof of work” mining, assigns a complex mathematical to each transaction that users within the currency compete with each other to solve. This process requires significant amounts of computational power and has led to “miners” using thousands of computers, which operate 24 hours a day. The first computer to find the solution to the problem is awarded the next block of bitcoins.
Once at full capacity — assuming current market price and mining network size — DMint expects to mine 18.5 Bitcoins per month, generating $1.1M in monthly revenue with the 1,000 computers at the Bradford location.
“The addition of 500 state-of-the-art Antminer S19j Pro computers is a major step towards scaling our Bitcoin Mining operation,” said Ronny Yakov, Chairman and CEO of the OLB Group. “The positive price movement since the start of our mining operations makes us even more optimistic about the long term viability of our operations. We remain fully committed to scaling our operations to 24,000 computers by the fall of 2023.”
The OLB Group, Inc., is a diversified Financial Technology (Fintech) company that provides eCommerce merchant services and also specializes in Bitcoin crypto mining.
OLB provides merchants with omnicommerce services including leading-edge crypto commerce capabilities, eCommerce, back office and kitchen operations, and payment acceptance online, in store, and on mobile devices. Merchants utilizing OLB’s OmniSoft Business Management platform can transact with customers through digital wallets, cryptocurrency wallets, and traditional card-based payment.
Recently, China cracked down on financial transactions involving cryptocurrency, which inspired a transition to the US for companies engaging in Bitcoin mining.
According to the release, the OLB Group considers itself to be at the forefront of institutional cryptocurrency adoption as one of the first eCommerce merchants to host Bitcoin mining data centers.
“By applying innovative processes to their unique merchant services expertise, OLB’s entrance into the mining industry signals the next wave of mining operations in North America,” the release stated.
