Hi huys hope you enjoy your daily dose of crypto news.
Bitcoin Mining Farms in Texas Offline From Winter Storm
Bitcoin mining farms in Texas have gone offline because of a massive winter storm that drained the state’s power grid.While some mining farms have stopped operations due to power outages, others are selling electricity back to the grid at a premium.
Due to the Texas outage, hashrate generated from Luxor’s mining pool has decreased by 40%. The majority of hashrate for the entire mining pool comes from the U.S. mining farms.
While it is not clear what exact percentage of hashrate in the global mining pool is from Texas-based facilitie, Bitmain and Layer 1, have operations in Texas because of the state’s cheap electricity.
Some mining farms are taking advantage of the situation by selling local residents their unused electricity.
“Some bitcoin miners were able to capitalize on selling their unused energy back to the grid for a huge profit,” JP Baric, CEO of Texas-based crypto mining company MiningStore, said on Sunday.
Texas’ power grid has already lost a small portion of energy production over the last weekend because wind turbines were frozen and natural gas available to electric plants became scarce.
By Sunday all types of energy sources, including nuclear plants, coal plants and thermal generators, were falling off the grid due to the winter storm.
Coinbase Opens Waitlist for Ethereum 2.0 Staking
Per a press release shared with CoinDesk, COINBASE customers can now sign up to stake their ETH into the Beacon Chain smart contract, the coordinator and bridge between the old Ethereum and Ethereum 2.0, the network’s momentous migration to a proof-of-stake network.
This upgrade will do away with proof-of-work mining in favor of staking. Typically, you need 32 ETH to run a validator node for Ethereum’s new blockchain, but Coinbase will allow their users to stake any amount of ETH in their account.
Rhea Kaw, a senior product manager for Coinbase’s retail team, told CoinDesk that Coinbase users could earn up to 7.5% APR on their staked ETH, depending on the Ethereum network’s variable rate of return.
In exchange for the service, Coinbase “take[s] a commission on all rewards received, and the return rate for our customers reflects this commission,” Kaw said. Per Coinbase’s User Agreement, this staking commission is 25% of the rewards received.
In addition to the forthcoming Ethereum staking option, Coinbase users can also stake Algorand (ALGO), Cosmos (ATOM) and Tezos (XTZ) tokens.
Christie’s auctions its first purely digital artwork in form of blockchain token
British auction house Christie’s has announced the auction of its first ever “purely digital work of art."
They announced the news Tuesday, Christie’s said that the nonfungible token artwork will be issued in partnership with major NFT marketplace MakersPlace. Dubbed “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” the piece was created by Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the name "Beeple."
According to the official page of the NFT auction, the starting price for the work, which interested parties can bid on from Feb. 25 until March 11, is just $100.
“It’s also the first-ever purely digital artwork (NFT) to be offered at a traditional auction house, with its authenticity assured thanks to blockchain technology,” Christie’s added.
Noah Davis, a postwar and contemporary expert based in New York, emphasized that Christie’s move into the NFT industry is crucial for digital art:
"Christie’s has never offered a new media artwork of this scale or importance before. [...] Acquiring Beeple’s work is a unique opportunity to own an entry in the blockchain itself created by one of the world’s leading digital artists.”
This new auction is not the company's first foray into blockchain-based art. In October 2020, a similar Christie’s auction sold a Bitcoin (BTC)-themed art piece and NFT based on blockchain technology for $131,250.
Other news you can check:
Ethereum-based domain names go mainstream with Cloudflare integration
Chinese lottery service 500.com acquires Bitcoin mining pool BTC.com
TOP 10 STONKS CRYPTOCURRENCIES LAST 24 Hours
image via coinmarketcap
TOP 10 UNSTONKS CRYPTOCURRENCIES LAST 24 Hours
image via coinmarketcap
It's all for today guys see you tomorrow with more news.
