Tesla Megapack will power the open-source, solar-powered Bitcoin mining facility with Blockstream and Jack Dorsey's Block.
Block (previously Square) and Blockstream, a Bitcoin infrastructure business, are partnering with Tesla (TSLA) to build a Bitcoin mining operation that will demonstrate that BTC can be used to fund zero-emission power infrastructure.
The facility will be powered by Tesla's 3.8-megawatt solar PV array and its 12-megawatt-hour Megapack, and work on it has begun.
The facility's 30 petahashes per second mining hardware will be powered entirely by solar energy, thanks to a mix of Tesla photovoltaics and Megapack battery storage. The Bitcoin mining facility will be finished later this year, with Blockstream supplying the mining technology and expertise to design and operate the operation.
According to a press statement shared with Yahoo Finance, the $12 million project would generate 3.8 megawatts of renewable energy and display a publicly accessible performance dashboard once finished.
Climate activists, ESG investors, and Bitcoin miners continue to discuss the energy intensity of Bitcoin mining in the political realm. Part of the issue is that most of the data on mining energy use is still too fresh to offer historical context and is frequently self-reported.
The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index found that Bitcoin's overall energy consumption (143 terawatt hours per year) is more than that of Ukraine, but it also admitted that comparing Bitcoin's energy consumption to a nation without extra context can be difficult.
Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back, a British cryptographer and a cypherpunk crew member, told CNBC on the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami that the mining operation is intended to be a proof of concept for 100% renewable energy bitcoin mining at scale.
In a news statement, Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream, said, "We are very happy to begin building this facility utilizing Tesla Solar and Megapack." "This is a step toward validating our premise that Bitcoin mining can support zero-emission power infrastructure while also fostering future economic growth."
The facility is expected to be finished "later this year." When it's up and running, a public dashboard will provide "real-time measures of the project's success, such as electricity generation and Bitcoin mined." The dashboard will be accessible "24 hours a day, seven days a week, from any browser, presenting the industry with a real-world, real-time case study of a zero-emission energy Bitcoin mine," according to the plan.
In an interview with CNBC, Back noted, "People like to dispute the numerous issues that have to do with Bitcoin mining." "Let's just prove it," we reasoned. Have an open dashboard so that anybody can play along, and perhaps it will alert more gamers to join in. "
The dashboard will be open to the public and will provide real-time information about the project's success, such as electricity generation and total bitcoin mined. According to the business, a future version of the dashboard would incorporate solar and storage performance data points.
Blockstream and Block, formerly known as Square, announced in June that they would work together to establish an open-source, solar-powered bitcoin mining facility in the United States.
A bitcoin is produced when powerful computers compete against one another to solve complicated mathematical riddles, a time-consuming process that presently relies heavily on fossil fuels.
In early 2021, Tesla spent $1.5 billion on Bitcoin. Shortly after, the company began accepting bitcoin as payment for new automobiles.
On the other hand, Tesla, on the other hand, took a step back with cryptocurrency a few days later by deleting the Bitcoin payment option. The businesses expressed worry about the Bitcoin network's energy requirements:
This was a worry echoed by many Tesla community members when Tesla originally revealed its Bitcoin investment, and many were outraged that the corporation hadn't considered it in the first place.
Tesla stated at the time that they were not selling their Bitcoin holdings and that they intended to begin accepting Bitcoin payments once the network had a larger proportion of renewable energy. Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, stated last summer that he hoped the company would begin accepting Bitcoin payments if the energy mix of Bitcoin mining improved. That has yet to materialize, but Tesla is already actively involved in using sustainable energy to fuel Bitcoin mining.
The project is already under development, according to the firms. Once completed, they want to share performance data on a monthly basis to demonstrate the economics of powering crypto mining with renewable energy. In the United States, West Texas is a renewable energy powerhouse. However, much of the wind and solar energy in the state is located in isolated areas. There is no motive to invest in renewable infrastructure to harness this energy if there is no financial incentive.
Bitcoin miners are the people who create bitcoins. When these energy consumers co-locate with renewables, it generates a financial incentive for buildout while also improving the underlying economics of renewable power production, which has been volatile.
According to Castle Island Venture's Nic Carter, miners offer demand for these semi-stranded assets, making renewables in Texas commercially viable.
The restriction is that West Texas has around 34 gigatonnes of electricity, five gigatonnes of demand, and only 12 gigatonnes of transmission. Consider bitcoin miners to be short-term purchasers who keep energy assets operating until the grid can absorb them completely. Back stated that the off-grid mine, which is anticipated to be finished later this year, exemplifies another essential aspect of the bitcoin network: miners are location agnostic and can "perform it from anyplace without local infrastructure." Back stated that if the project is lucrative in its pilot stage, the firms would add wind power to the mix and grow the entire project.
"You're calculating the ideal economic mix of solar and storage," Back explained. "There are 3.8 megawatts of solar and one megawatt of mining, so you can see you need to overprovision since peak solar input changes over the day and, of course, it's not there at night."
Adding wind to the mix, on the other hand, would lower total expenses and help balance out the downtime caused by solar.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is one of the most outspoken critics of the Bitcoin mining sector in the United States. Warren and other senators addressed a letter to several prominent Bitcoin-mining businesses in late January, voicing concerns about their energy use and highlighting how Bitcoin's overall energy consumption increased between 2019 and 2021.
According to Ark Invest research, the mining sector generates 76 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, making it significantly more renewable than the overall US energy system and beneficial for recovering otherwise squandered natural gas.
Block's global ESG lead and project lead for Block's Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative, said Neil Jorgensen. "By partnering on this full-stack, 100 percent solar-powered bitcoin mining initiative with Blockstream, we want to further accelerate bitcoin's synergy with renewables.".
OpenSea is closing in on support for Solana NFTs in April, substantially widening the NFT community.
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $45,000 during early Asian trading hours on Friday, causing cryptocurrency markets to fall 3.5 percent in the previous 24 hours.
Cardano's ADA and Avalanche's AVAX fell 5%, while Polkadot's DOT, Shiba Inu's SHIB, and Dogecoin's DOGE fell more than 7% in the last 24 hours. Solana's SOL continued to outperform, holding flat on Friday after leading advances on Thursday; BNB Chain's BNB also excelled, dropping 3%.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were broadly flat on Thursday, holding onto gains from a recent rise as risk sentiment in broader markets froze and investors followed developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Over $400 million in crypto-tracked futures liquidations occurred in the last 24 hours. Liquidations are forced closings of a trader's leveraged crypto trading position by an exchange owing to a partial or entire loss of the trader's initial margin.
Bitcoin futures had the most future losses, totaling more than $120 million, followed by ether (ETH) futures, which had $63 million in losses. However, because of turbulent trading, some less popular futures lost more than other prominent cryptos on Friday.
Solana (SOL 9.57 percent) soared into double digits in early trade on Thursday, following a massive increase on Wednesday. The cryptocurrency had gained 4.1 percent in the previous 24 hours and had reached a high of 6.2 percent.
Solana is up 25.1 percent in the previous week, indicating a strong run, and its value is rising today as the value of other cryptocurrencies falls. Volatility remains the norm for cryptocurrencies, and at times like these, it benefits Solana investors. However, keep in mind that the gain in prices might be reversed just as fast as it began.
As corporations begin to take Solana more seriously, investors continue to pour into it. Coinbase Global just began trading for several Solana-based tokens, and OpenSea announced yesterday that it will begin holding about 50 Solana non-fungible coins. Many investors who trade exclusively in Bitcoin or Ethereum may be unaware of what is being built atop Solana. Therefore, these movements provide exposure to the ecosystem. As genuine businesses are formed on the blockchain, this should lead to even more investment and increased prices for Solana and its tokens.
While the cryptocurrency industry as a whole appears to have regained its feet in recent weeks, the price of Solana has truly shone. According to CoinMarketCap, Sol has the best performance of any Top 30 cryptocurrency, with a 31 percent gain in the previous seven days. has made some huge movements in the previous several days. Solana's price movement is probably definitely a reaction to NFT marketplace OpenSea's plans to include Solana on the platform in April.
OpenSea, a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, has announced the upcoming integration of the Solana (SOL) blockchain within its platform, a long-awaited move that industry experts and numerical data indicate could have reciprocal benefits across both ecosystems, as well as positive sentiments for the wider NFT market. Solana is quickly becoming a big player in the NFT market, with high-grossing titles such as Solana Monkey Business and Degenerate Ape Academy. Both NFT collections have produced over $100 million in lifetime volume, while Aurory's play-to-earn collection has topped the $75 million level. The market will undoubtedly be influenced by OpenSea's backing. For starters, the floor price of Solana-based NFTs and transaction volumes might skyrocket. Solana is also home to DeFi technologies and Web3 programs.
However, there is a danger that Solana NFT markets such as Magic Eden and SolanArt will lose a significant portion of their market share to Solana. Over the previous week, Magic Eden accounted for more than 90% of Solana NFT sales. The change was initially disclosed in January, when tech journalist Jane Manchun Wong declared on Twitter that "OpenSea is working on Solana integration, as well as Phantom wallet compatibility."
Solana will join the list of three networks: Ethereum, layer-2 Polygon, and Klaytn, and will be viewable via the drop-down "all chains" option on the rankings page. OpenSea joyfully referred to the announcement as the "best-kept secret in Web3," referring to the large number of tweets and media stories on the possibility of a Solana launch. Adam Montgomery, the company's head of blockchain, also expressed his thoughts on the launch.
The launch of NFT marketplace LooksRare in January 2022 was the first true leadership threat to OpenSea's multi-year monopoly in the NFT field. It witnessed the implementation of an airdropping scheme, which allowed seasoned investors to claim governance Looks tokens as rewards for using the site.
According to Dune Analytics, LooksRare has registered a total of 55,874 users since its debut on January 10, facilitating almost $21.3 billion in transaction activity. In comparison, since the launch of its competitor, OpenSea has registered 884,052 new members. Nevertheless, these investors have only traded a little more than $12 billion in volume.
Solana is already present in a number of NFT markets, including Magic Eden, Solanart, and Solsea. Based on both user adoption and actual volume counts, Magic Eden holds a rather dominant dominance in Solana's NFT market. The table below breaks out Solana NFT activity during the previous 30 days by the top three markets. In the case of Solana's ecosystem, DappRadar marketplace data shows that Magic Eden now leads the field with a $41.05 million trade volume over the last 30 days, followed by Solanart and Solsea with $4.39 million and 656,830, respectively.
Following Magic Eden's collaboration with Overtime, co-founder Jack Lu told Cointelegraph that NFTs will allow the next generation of sports enthusiasts to enjoy sports in a fundamentally different way than the previous generation of millennials, who grew up passively watching sports on TV or in person.
OpenSea's growth might pose competition to Magic Eden, the primary marketplace for Solana NFTs. The 2% transaction fee charged by Magic Eden is 50 basis points lower than that charged by OpenSea, providing buyers and sellers a modest advantage. It remains to be seen whether this is enough to beat the market leader.
The amount of NFT activity on Solana has recently increased. According to CryptoSlam, 4 of the top 20 NFT collections by 24-hour sales volume are on Solana as of the article's writing. To put things in perspective, Solana hasn't had a single collection in the top 20 in the previous 30 days. As a result, there is a noticeable increase in interest in Solana NFT projects. While a 24-hour sample size is insignificant, NFT sales on Solana exceeded $11 million for the second day in a row on March 30th. The two-day period of March 29–30 was the strongest for NFT sales on Solana since early October. It should also be noted that the number of unique purchasers surpassed 8,600 over that two-day period. It's worth noting that daily unique purchasers have held up rather well in recent months, even when sales have been low. But, once again, the sample size is limited. I believe we can draw some conclusions from the trend in average NFT sale price over the last few months.
While it is no secret that Solana wants to be a lower-cost layer 1 alternative to Ethereum, it appears that Solana is certainly appealing to lower-cost NFT buyers and sellers in the early stages. The average retail price of a Solana-based NFT in August was well over $2,500. As March comes to a conclusion, the average price of Solana NFTs has dropped below $500. When average NFT sales data is compared to ETH and fellow Avalanche, it gives an intriguing perspective.
Avalanche has seen a 44 percent increase in average NFT price since November, when most coin values peaked, but Ethereum and Solana NFTs are still significantly below their highs. While NFT average price drops have been rather severe, especially since August in the instance of Solana, the number of unique NFT purchasers on Solana has been growing.
Solana's average NFT pricing drop has not been due to a lack of interest in the network. It's more of a sign that Solana does, in fact, decrease the barrier to entry for NFT buyers and sellers. While Avalanche has a strong overall trend, Solana has seen significantly greater acceptance as a network for feasible NFT applications than Avalanche or Polygon.
Nonetheless, prudence is advised. Despite the increase in NFT activity on Solana and the significant increase in the price of SOL over the last week or two, the token value is likely still well beyond what would be acceptable based on other measures. After all, NFTs are only a subset of the activity on layer 1 blockchains. Even if I view the NFT action on Solana as generally good, it's critical to examine all on-chain activities when determining whether the performance in SOL is warranted.
When it comes to minting non-fungible tokens, Solana is one of the most popular networks among artists. In recent months, the protocol has emerged as a serious contender to the market leader, Ethereum. Despite its sales volume disadvantage, Solana has certain benefits over its competitor. It employs a Proof-of-History consensus technique, allowing it to execute transactions at a high throughput of more than 60,000 transactions per second (TPS). In comparison, Ethereum presently has a processing capacity of up to 15 TPS.
It is also less expensive to mint NFTs on the Solana network. Because the gas expenses are lower than those of Ethereum, the blockchain technology is more eco-friendly.
In a recent tweet, OpenSea revealed the Solana integration date.
The value of the global cryptocurrency market declined as tensions between Russia and Ukraine have increased.
Following recent advances, crypto traders have been defensive as tensions between Russia and Ukraine have increased. The value of the global cryptocurrency market declined 1.47 percent to $1.83 trillion in the previous 24 hours, while trade volumes plummeted 16.75 percent to $72.95 billion.
Stablecoins accounted for 80.75 percent of the $58.91 billion in 24-hour cryptocurrency trading volume, while decentralized finance (DeFi) contributed 12.29 percent, or $8.97 billion.
On the morning of February 19, Bitcoin's market dominance increased by 0.06 percent to 41.72 percent, and the currency was trading at $40,208.63.
Binance Coin has dropped roughly 2% to $413. Avalanche was down 0.58 percent and Cardano was down 1.35 percent. In the previous 24 hours, Polkadot was down 1.75 percent while Litecoin was down 2.65 percent. Tether was up 0.09 percent.
Ether, the cryptocurrency tied to the Ethereum blockchain and the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, fell to $2,763.10 as well.
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum (ETH), has been the subject of a new report from Morgan Stanley's wealth management global investment office, which warns that it may lose market dominance and smart contract superiority to cheaper and faster networks like Solana, Cardano, Tezos, Polkadot, and others. Ethereum is more volatile than Bitcoin, and it faces greater competitive threats, scalability concerns, and complexity challenges than Bitcoin due to its more ambitious addressable market.
According to the investment bank's researchers, Ethereum offers a higher investment risk than bitcoin since it requires fewer transactions per user to utilize BTC, which is similar to a decentralized savings account, but ETH demand is more tightly related to transactions.
This indicates that scaling limits may have a greater impact on Ethereum demand than they do on Bitcoin demand. The experts also looked at the regulatory status of decentralized financial apps and non-fungible tokens, which might see authorities crack down on them in the future, limiting demand for Ethereum transactions.
While Ethereum is more centralized than Bitcoin, with the top 100 addresses controlling 39 percent of Ether, compared to 14 percent for Bitcoin, the paper claims that its transaction-based burning mechanism gives it greater market potential and deflationary characteristics.
According to statistics from the blockchain, roughly $800,000 worth of Ethereum being destroyed every hour, with over $5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency already burned, as CryptoGlobe reported late last year. According to Morgan Stanley, when Ethereum switches to Proof-of-Stake, its performance will dramatically increase.
In particular, JPMorgan researchers led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou have stated that when it comes to non-fungible tokens, Ethereum is losing market share to competitors such as Solana (NFTs). As a result of the cryptocurrency's network's high transaction costs, Ethereum's volume share of non-fungible token trading decreased from 95 percent at the start of 2021 to 80 percent, according to the experts.
Morgan Stanley analysts downplayed bitcoin's 50% loss from its all-time high in November in a research note titled "State of the Bear Market" earlier this month, citing metrics that demonstrate the decrease was within historical averages.
According to an announcement made today, senior officials at the Federal Reserve would no longer be permitted to possess cryptocurrency, as well as conventional assets such as stocks. The new limits spelled forth for investment and trading activities of senior officials in a statement from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the body of the Fed that decides monetary policy direction.
Senior Federal Reserve officials will no longer be able to purchase cryptocurrency, individual stocks, or sector funds, or maintain investments in individual bonds, agency securities, commodities, or foreign currencies, according to the FOMC. They are also prohibited from engaging in derivatives transactions, short sells, or margin purchases.
Bitcoin has lost around 35% of its value since peaking at over $69,000 in November of last year, as risk aversion rises as the Federal Reserve and other global central banks tighten financial conditions and remove pandemic-era liquidity from the system.