John Lee Quigley, who’s focused on building Bitcoin media and research products at HASHR8 Inc, a cryptocurrency mining and media firm that aims to support the “decentralized growth” of hashrate (or computing power used to secure digital currency networks) while enhancing the security of blockchains, notes that 2020 is now behind us and “what a year it was.”
A global (COVID-19) pandemic, “extraordinary” monetary stimulus, and Bitcoin (BTC) reaching multiple all-time highs were “all on the agenda for what was certainly an eventful year,” Quigley acknowledged.
As we head into 2021, Bitcoin (BTC), the flagship cryptocurrency continues to hit even more all-time highs. The HASHR8 team confirmed that they’ll remain focused on supporting the crypto mining sector, which is the core infrastructure that helps to secure the decentralized Bitcoin network. HASHR8 states that it dedicates all its efforts specifically to this critical and fast-growing industry. This year is already on track to be “a banner year” for Bitcoin miners and HASHR8 said it’s “looking forward to every minute of it.”
With many more crypto-focused mining companies or businesses now eager to expand their operations this year, HASHR8 is expecting important developments from several key players in the mining sector. They’ve shared a list of top 10 mining firms or organizations (presented by Compass) that are worth watching closely in the coming year.
As noted in a blog post by HASHR8, here are some of the leading organizations or entities for crypto mining to follow closely:
US Government – Several world governments have revealed that they now maintain Bitcoin mining operations. Notably, Venezuela and Iran have their own Bitcoin mining activities. These nations might be looking at Bitcoin as a way to bypass international sanctions and meet their import expenses. It appears to be “only a matter of time before the leading first-world governments consider holding Bitcoin or mining BTC as part of a strategy to maintain power,” the HASHR8 team claims.
According to HASHR8, from a “game theory perspective, it is logical for the US government to own Bitcoin or have infrastructure which is generating hashrate.” If the United States fails to do so while its major competitors manage to gain exposure and infrastructure, then there could be “severe risks” that could be imposed on its “dominant position and national security,” HASHR8 noted.
US Treasury Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brain Brooks has reportedly expressed concerns regarding the large amount of BTC mining infrastructure based in mainland China. Brooks emphasized that the United States would have to deal with a “geo-strategic competitiveness issue.”
Garrick Hileman, Head of Research at Blockchain.com, has predicted that we could see major world governments “publicly owning Bitcoin in 2021.” The rush or urgency for the United States to control mining infrastructure for Bitcoin became somewhat evident in an announcement made by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
The OCC has now authorized banking institutions to treat public blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks as a settlement network and to run computing nodes. The note by the OCC states that the overall demand to conduct transactions across public blockchains should keep rising. According to HASHR8, the OCC “clearly views US banks operating the infrastructure required to send and receive Bitcoin transactions as a critical response to this rise in demand.”
Some of the other crypto-related / Bitcoin mining firms to keep an eye on include CoinMetrics, Galaxy Digital, Foundry, Braiins, Upstream Data, Bitfarms, Riot Blockchain, Bitmain, and MicroBT.
(Note: for more details on these companies, check here.)