BTC.com, the world’s largest bitcoin mining pool, is reportedly going to launch an Ethereum mining operation that is expected to have 12% of the second-largest cryptocurrency’s hashrate within the next 12 months.
According to Forbes the operation, a mining pool, is set to support both ethereum (ETH) and ethereum classic (ETC), with its users being able to change between the two cryptocurrencies according to their preference.
BTC.com notably claims to have mined 21% of all newly-mined bitcoin this past year, and at press time accounts for about 15.6% of the flagship cryptocurrency’s hashrate, according to Blockchain.info data. Similarly, it accounts for about 14% of bitcoin cash’s total hashrate.
Zhuang Zhong, director of the firm’s mining pool, revealed he believes launching an Ethereum mining pool is set to help expand the cryptocurrency’s network. BTC.com’s operation, he noted, is expected to grow to 12% of the cryptocurrency’s hashrate. He said:
Because contracts are charged per line of executed code and miners are rewarded for dedicated hashes using Ghost, ethereum provides multiple different reward incentives to contribute hash power to the network, We hope to expand ethereum’s network by relaying those rewards through our FPPS system.
BTC.com is notably owned by cryptocurrency mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain, which revealed an Ethash ASIC miner earlier this year, capable of mining both ethereum and ethereum classic. The new mining machine sparked a debate within the ETH community regarding ASIC resistance, which hasn’t been implemented.
Bitmain, as CryptoGlobe covered, is eyeing an $18 billion initial public offering (IPO), potentially the biggest one in history. In the first quarter of this year the company recorded $1.1 billion in profits, helping it justify its valuation. Its upcoming IPO has been dissected by BitMEX research.
Ethereum is notably set to transition to Casper, a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm that will replace its current Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm. The transition seemingly doesn’t worry BTC.com, as Zhong revealed it’s “still possible to host a mining pool in PoS mode.”
Per the mining pool operator’s words, creating such a mining pool will be a complex task. One that is seemingly being faced with confidence as the operators have “a lot of hands-on experience with wallet and Ethereum smart contracts to make a PoS mining pool possible.”
