The Redbank coal power plant situated in Australia’s Hunter Valley will reportedly be with the sole purpose of powering rigs. The owner of the power plant, a utility company named Hunter Energy, has entered an agreement with a local tech company, IOT Group, to restart operations for the first time since 2014.
IOT Group plans to set up cryptocurrency mining operations under the title of Blockchain Operations Centre once the plant begins producing electricity again. The 151 Megawatt power plant is located at a two hours drive from Sydney and is expected to be by 2019. Renewing this defunct coal power plant will make bitcoin mining a whole lot cheaper for IOT Group.
Converting Electricity into Digital Money
Most operate on either one of two primary consensus mechanisms, proof of work or proof of stake. Any cryptocurrency dependent on the proof of stake protocol does not need to be mined. Instead, all coins are already in circulation when the cryptocurrency is launched. On the other hand, cryptocurrencies such as and are based on the proof of work concept where dedicated miners verify blocks on the containing transactions. These miners use computational power to solve a series of mathematical problems. The first such mining rig to arrive at a unique solution is rewarded with a specific amount of bitcoin.
When was launched in 2009, early cryptocurrency enthusiasts could mine bitcoin using their desktop and personal computers. However, as more and more computers flooded the network, the mining difficulty skyrocketed. Miners were forced to invest in more powerful hardware to continue making any profit. Today, these advanced processors used for mining, popularly known as ASICs, tend to pull a great deal of power from the electric grid.
Worldwide Mining Power Woes
Cryptocurrency mining has spiralled into being an extremely power intensive process. A recent report highlighted that bitcoin mining now than the total consumption of 159 countries combined. Miners across the globe have been on the search for a .
It is clear that IOT Group aims to solve this purely by providing itself with a dedicated power plant for its mining rigs. Hunter Energy will reportedly the power produced from the plant to the company at a discounted price.
, a small municipality in America, recently moved to all bitcoin mining operations for 18 months temporarily. According to the city council, bitcoin miners were consuming a significant chunk of cheap electricity allocated for the region. Consequently, the local power company was forced to buy additional power at market prices. The higher cost was then passed on to residents as an additional burden.
Environmental Concerns
Should the Redbank power plant be successful in providing cheap electricity to miners, it is possible that the city may become a cryptocurrency mining hub. Nevertheless, there are apparent environmental concerns that stand in the way before the power plant resumes operation again.
Coal power plants release tonnes of carbon dioxide gas in the air, furthering the problem of global warming. Several countries, including Australia, at the COP21 Summit in Paris to voluntarily shut down coal-based power plants. It remains to be seen whether or not Australia will take a closer look at this particular plant before it starts producing coal-based electricity once again.
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Blockchain technology, the building blocks of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is slowly but steadily going mainstream. In recent times, many traditional financial institutions have been experimenting with the blockchain in a bid to eliminate the challenges of making cross-border transactions. Now, Santander is set to launch an international payment solution powered by Ripple.
The Santander-Ripple Connection
According to the , Banking big whale Santander group is set to finally launch its application for seamless and cheap cross-border payments, powered by the Ripple xCurrent blockchain platform.
The app which is known as One Pay FX will only be available to the company’s customers in the U.K., Brazil, Spain, and Poland for now, but it will enter many other countries by the end of 2018.
That’s not all, Santander is also focused on making the One Pay FX an industry standard for international payments. The group has hinted that it could make the distributed technology-powered app available to other financial institutions shortly.
A Long Time Coming
The Ripple-Santander initiative has for quite a long time now, even before many caught the cryptocurrency fever.
Santander’s One Pay FX, built on the Ripple blockchain, has been under development since 2016. Its successful launch will cement the legacy of Santander as one of the financial institutions to pioneer the full use of in carrying out foreign exchange payments for clients.
According to , the U.K. branch of the bank has been piloting the app with bank staffers for over a year now. They also tested the One Pay FX system using Apple Pay for sending payments as low as £10 up to £10,000 ($14.26 to $14,255.37) using Touch ID for secure sign-in.
Notably, in November 2017, the U.K. arm of the Spain-based bank announced plans to work with American Express, to use the Ripple blockchain network for cross-border business-to-business payments.
xCurrent not XRP
The Santander cross-border payment solution will not use Ripple’s native cryptocurrency. Instead, it will run on the firm’s xCurrent protocol, which is an enterprise software solution that facilitates instant, frictionless international transactions with end-to-end tracking.
xCurrent enable financial institutions to communicate in real-time to verify payment details before sending payments and to confirm successful delivery once the deal settles.
As noted by the Financial Times, cross-border transactions from the four nations the app will serve could account for at least half of the volume of the bank’s retail customers.
Ripple Going Places
The Ripple team has been establishing robust with quite many financial institutions in recent times.
On March 8, 2018, BTCManager that Ripple had established strategic partnerships with an array of Japanese banks and FinTech firms in a bid to launch and boost adoption for its MoneyTap app which facilitates real-time payments.
While the Ripple protocol continues to make significant progress in the banking and FinTech ecosystem, it remains to be seen whether these breakthroughs will trickle down to its native cryptocurrency soon. At press time, the is at $0.64, as seen on Coinmarketcap.
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