CRYPTO MINERS IN NEW BOOMTOWNS

Wednesday:- The world's largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin is down more than 7% to around $34,346.  Overnight on Monday, it dipped below $30,000  to $29,614  as Chinese authorities continued their crackdown on Bitcoin mining. 

Last Friday, authorities in China’s Sichuan province ordered cryptocurrency miners to shut down their operations. Sichuan is one of the biggest bitcoin mining centers in China.

China’s renewed crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry has wiped nearly $300 billion in value off of the total digital currency market since Friday.

Bitcoin, ether, XRP, and other digital coins fell sharply.

As China ramps up its crackdown on crypto mining, big mining farms are looking for new locations where they can set up their business. Two of the largest crypto miners in the world, Huobi, and BTC.TOP is looking to relocate offshore.

“In the long term, nearly all of Chinese crypto mining rigs will be sold overseas, as Chinese regulators crack down on mining at home,” Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of BTC.TOP wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

BTC.TOP is a crypto mining pool, where multiple miners share their resources to form one central mining operation. Hashcow, which runs 10 mining farms in China, also announced that it will stop operations in the country.

China accounts for over 70% of all Bitcoin mining in the world, and one of the reasons for this was cheap energy. 

THE CRYPTO EXODUS

The Chinese crackdown has led miners to Texas and Florida. Texas has some of the world's lowest energy prices. As of 2019, 20% of its power is coming from wind. Its share of renewables is growing over time. And more critically, its political landscape is very pro-crypto - just the right conditions for intrepid crypto miners looking for cheap energy and a warm welcome.

Amid the Chinese crackdown, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is wooing crypto miners with cheap energy and clean nuclear power, ' We want to be on the next wave of innovation '. 

Thanks to the mayor's refashioning the city's ' fun in the sun ' image, tech leaders have also decamped from Silicon Valley and New York as Bitcoin gained legitimacy and value. Tech titans Blackstone Group, Elliot Management, Silicon Valley venture capitalists have flocked to Miami and will benefit from the added technological support from the migrating mining community.

Paraguay and El Salvador have picked the right time to enter the crypto industry. The recent boom in the crypto market has created room for new traders and more crypto miners. 

Why miners? Because they are the ones that authenticate the transactions Mining is the energy-intensive process that creates new coins and maintains logs of all transactions of existing digital tokens.

El Salvador and Paraguay are not alone in eyeing the crypto mining rush. Argentina is experiencing a boom in crypto mining, on the back of cheap electricity.

The global cryptocurrency mining market is expected to grow to $2.8 billion by 2024, at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7%, making it an attractive option for countries to capitalize on this crypto rush.

THE CRYPTO INVESTMENT BOOM

MicroStrategy, a Virginia-based IT enterprise software company has increased its Bitcoin holdings to more than $3 billion as of Monday. It owns more than 100,000 Bitcoins after completing another purchase round,  spending  $489 million on 13,005 tokens.

Circle, the creator of the second-largest stable coin, USDC, raised $440 million in private investment in May this year. 

Circle's platform has supported more than 100 million transactions by more than 10 million retail customers and over 1,000 businesses.  Circle also recently became Visa’s V +0.7% partner to help businesses on the network settle transactions in USDC. 

Over the past year, USDC has supported over $615 billion in transactions – a growth of more than 28,000% in the past 12 months.

BlockFi, New Jersey-based and founded in 2017, is now one of the leading cryptocurrency lending providers. It raised $350 million in March this year.

BlockFi's products range from crypto-collateralized loans and interest-bearing accounts through which investors can earn interest on their crypto holdings. 

Another notable crypto start-up, Dapper Labs, the Vancouver-based developer, best known as the developer of NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace for basketball video highlights or “moments.” raised $305 million in March 2021.

The project, which has already surpassed the $400 million mark in trading volume, is largely responsible for the boom of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are digital proofs of ownership on a blockchain. 

Earlier, Dapper Labs developed a popular Ethereum game of breedable collectibles called CryptoKitties. 

Blockchain.com raised $300 million in March 2021. The company which is now valued at $5.2 billion provides a variety of crypto services to retail and institutional clients but is most known for its non-custodial digital wallets. 

Unlike their counterparts controlled by third parties, these wallets give users full control over their private keys that represent ownership of crypto assets. The London-based company says it has processed 28% of all Bitcoin transactions since 2012.

Another mega-investment went to Bitso, which raised $250million in May 2021 and has a post-money valuation of $2.2 billion.

Mexico City-based Bitso was founded in 2014 and is the largest cryptocurrency platform in Latin America. 

Bitso offers multiple crypto products and services to more than 2 million customers across Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. These include the Bitso App that lets users buy, sell, send, or receive Bitcoin and 8 other cryptocurrencies; Bitso Alpha, a professional-grade crypto trading platform; and Bitso Business, a suite of cross-border products for local enterprises. Bitso has more than a 95% crypto market share in Mexico and more than a 60% share in Argentina.

In this burgeoning crypto space, private equity, institutional and strategic investors are now the key players in what was a nascent market. 

These big players will change the crypto world and provide the impetus for a boom in cryptocurrencies as a mainstream investment.

Gerard Peters, founder, and CEO of  QuantiFAI Technologies Investment expertise for blockchain assets 

The innovative QuantifAI trading system is developed by an international fintech team to navigate the volatility in crypto markets, for capital protection,  perpetual earning, 24/7 profit, and strict risk management to ensure consistent monthly returns. 

The company is structured as a fintech company to provide management services for client-owned accounts, allowing all client funds to be always retained in clients'  full ownership.