Japanese Bitcoin Mining Firm GMO Stops Mining Bitcoin Cash

Those documents, made public by “The Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast” host Trace Mayer, indicate that the Tokyo-based GMO mined 0 BCH in July, down from a high of 287 in February.

However, it’s possible GMO will resume mining BCH if its profitability increases in the future. The firm’s bitcoin cash mining operation has been highly-sporadic, and it also mined 0 BCH in April before mining 37 and 62 BCH over the next two months.

GMO’s bitcoin mining operation, however, has been characterized by a steady increase in BTC revenue. In July, GMO mined 568 BTC — worth $3.8 million at the present exchange rate — up from 528 the month prior and just 21 in Dec. 2017.

Earlier this year, GMO said that it hoped to scale its mining operation to 3,000PH/s by December. However, that now seems unlikely, as declining cryptocurrency profits have squeezed miner profit margins and reduced the incentive to invest in new hashpower. Indeed, GMO mined with 384PH/s in July, which made it the first month this year that it did not bring new devices online.

In June, GMO unveiled the B2, first bitcoin mining chip wholly-developed by a Japanese company. The device, which also featured the world’s first 7nm chip, quickly sold out. GMO is now accepting preorders for the B3, which the firm claims can achieve a hashpower as high as 33TH/s, compared to the 14TH/s offered by the Antminer S9, Bitmain’s flagship mining rig.

Bitmain, as CCN reported, is currently planning the cryptocurrency industry’s largest-ever initial public offering (IPO). However, the China-based firm, which once had a market share as large as 85 percent, is facing increasing competition from GMO and others, leading market research firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. to speculate in a recent report that the ASIC designer has lost its competitive edge.

“I respect Bitmain,” GMO CEO Masatoshi Kumagi said in June, perhaps presciently, “but we will top them.”