The migration of cryptocurrency miners to hydro-power abundant Quebec has been received cautiously lately, following an initial period over-exuberance on the part of local officials. The future for Quebec’s mining industry has since encountered a number of hurdles, from the province’s ability to supply power during the dry winter season to the often overlooked environmental tolls of producing hydropower.
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Hydro-Quebec Considers Suspending Power Provision to Mining Companies During Dry Season
In recent months, the Canadian province of Quebec has sought to attract cryptocurrency miners, offering up cheap and abundant hydropower.
After initially boasting of surplus electricity, the province’s state-owned power company, Hydro-Quebec, has since taken a more cautious approach with regards to encouraging the proliferation of Quebec-based mining operations, after reconsidering its ability to satiate demand from both citizens and miners during the dry winter season.
Marc-Antoine Pouliot, a spokesperson for Hydro-Quebec, has the dry season as the principal barrier to Hydro-Quebec’s capacity to meet the constant energy draw produced by miners, recently proposing that sanctions are placed on mining companies during winter.
“In Quebec, residential customers heat their homes with electricity. [As a] consequence, the demand can be very high when the temperature is below -20°C for a few days. We are now analyzing the effect of the [mining industry] on our winter peak. One of the solutions could be to oblige blockchain companies to suspend the activity during the winter.”
Canadians Concerned About Ecological Toll of Increased Power Consumption
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has published an article claiming that the purportedly modest ecological footprint generated through Quebec’s power production has come under increasing scrutiny. Jeff Wells, a conservation biologist and researcher at Cornell University, has also warned of the potential environmental consequences of increased miner activities, emphasizing the ecological strains incurred through the construction of dams.
Mr. Wells asserts that the damage created by constructing the reservoirs required to hold a ready supply of water is too great to justify any industry. Mr. Wells asserts that said reservoirs are increasingly overtaking existing forests and leading to the large-scale rotting of tree roots, which results in the release of significant quantities of methane. “You’re putting hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of acres under water. You’re putting a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and stopping the ability of that area to take any more carbon into the system. You’ve lost a whole ecosystem.”
Mr. Pouliot has sought to assure that the company’s ability to meet demand during the peak of winter is the sole hurdle posed by the proliferation of industrial-scale mining operations. The spokesman has dismissed ecological concerns, asserting that full environmental impact assessments are completed before any dams are constructed by the Hydro-Quebec.
Canadian Company Creates Modular Mining Apparatus
Canadian startup company, K.E. Inc., has developed self-contained modular shells designed to accommodate up to 1,200 cryptocurrency miners. The company’s founder, Fooad Nejad, has asserted that a recirculation ventilation system reduces power consumption through eliminating heating and cooling requirements.
The pods resemble shipping containers, however, and can be constructed virtually anywhere without requiring retrofitting and other costs associated with establishing mining operations in old buildings. The pods can also be adapted to channel heat production, with Mr. Nejad predicting that the pods may in future be used to grow warm-weather crops year round.
Despite efforts to reduce the ecological footprint incurred through mining, Christian Catalini, associate professor of technological innovation at MIT and founder of MIT’s Crypto-economics lab, has argued that the energy-intensive nature of cryptocurrency mining is a consequence of the fundamental lack of trust between the participants of a transaction.
“You’re essentially solving worthless puzzles that we cannot solve mathematically. You can only brute-force your way into it, Mr. Catalini said. “Basically, you’re placing an economic cost between a user and an attacker. If someone wants to subvert the system by faking a transaction, or revert a legitimate transaction, they would have to expend a tremendously high amount of energy and computation – to the point that no rational economic actor would do that, because the cost of doing an attack would be far greater than the benefit.”
Do you think that the honeymoon period is over between Hydro-Quebec and cryptocurrency miners? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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Goodbye winter; hello spring! As we shift from the cold, snowy season to warmer, vibrant days, it’s time for our first quarterly product update post of 2018. We’ve got a fresh collection of updates, so let’s jump right in!
What’s new in Q1 2018?
US users can now sell bitcoin
bitcoin Cash addresses get a new look
Importing ether from MyEtherWallet and Mist is live
bitcoin Cash is fully supported on Android
iOS users can now exchange ETH BTC
Selling bitcoin available in the US
Thanks to our partnership with SFOX, users in 22 states sell bitcoin within their wallet without compromising security or control. Stay tuned as we expand on this US integration to include buying bitcoin, as well as buying and selling other assets like ether and bitcoin Cash.
bitcoin Cash address format change
Prior to this update, bitcoin Cash and bitcoin addresses shared the same format. This inevitably led to confusion for users, especially those who transacted with both currencies. Thankfully, bitcoin Cash developers to give bitcoin Cash addresses a new look without having any effect on underlying public and private keys. Going forward, we encourage users to use the new address format when sending and receiving.
Importing existing ether from Mist and MyEtherWallet
Building upon our ether functionality, users can now import existing ether from Mist and MyEtherWallet. When logged in to your Blockchain wallet, visit Settings > General > Import Funds from MyEtherWallet. All you’ll need is your Mist or MyEtherWallet passphrase and Keystore file. ERC 20 tokens are not currently supported, but can still be accessed via other services.
Exchange BTC <-> ETH on iOS
A second key update on mobile for Q1, iOS users can now easily exchange between BTC and ETH. Previously released to web and Android users, iOS users are now able to access the same user-friendly exchange experience.
bitcoin Cash joins our Android family of currencies
bitcoin Cash has joined our lineup of digital currencies available to Android users. From the central dashboard, users can easily toggle between currencies to seamlessly transact and safely manage balances, all while keeping an eye on market prices.
If you’d like to help us build the future of finance, check out our open positions . All our earlier product updates can be found .
Richard Jacobs (organizer of the bitcoin, Ethereum, and Blockchain Super Conference, which took place in Dallas in February) is hosting a new conference in September.
He’s bringing together more than a hundred respected players from blockchain, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, virtual reality, and other future tech spaces – so they can show you how “smart money” is already buying its way into the future tech gold rush, and how smaller private investors can get in early too.
Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Tim Draper, the billionaire venture capitalist and bitcoin “hodler” – amongst other things, he’s going to reveal why he has NOT sold his bitcoin position, and is, in fact, still building it up.
Randi Zuckerberg, CEO of Zuckerberg Media – before the word “social media” barely existed, she played an important role in transforming Facebook from a startup into one of the world’s most valuable companies; at the Future Tech Expo, she’s going to talk about how she’s now inspiring the next generation of kids to embrace the technologies of the future.
Lyn Ulbricht – her son Ross Ulbricht was the creator of the Silk Road online market place; he is now serving a double life sentence plus 40 years on top, with no prospect of parole, in a maximum-security prison; Lyn now leads the campaign to not only free him, but also change the law so that future tech entrepreneurs are protected from politically-motivated charges.
And several others that are
The Future Tech Expo 2018 takes place on September 14-16, in Dallas, TX.
Registration is now open – and although the regular ticket price is $897, attendees who reserve their spot before Monday, March 30th get a special “April Early Bird” price of $597 plus a complimentary conference T-shirt and CD compilation of the most insightful Future Tech Podcast episodes.
Those who are interested in attending are encouraged to join the .
“April Early Bird” tickets can be purchased .
About Future Tech Expo
The “blockchain revolution” is no longer just about blockchain anymore. In 2018-19 and beyond, blockchain tech is converging with quantum computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and other emerging technologies – and driving what economists call the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
is the only conference that gives attendees the full picture on how “smart money” is betting on the fourth industrial revolution. That’s because it is bringing together more than 100 of the most respected developers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and “smart money” investors from all the most important emerging technology fields – not just blockchain tech.
This three-day conference will be held at the Dallas Convention Center, close to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, in September.
We are expecting more than 2,000 attendees, 100 headline speakers, and 150 exhibitors – with talks from founders, developers, and early-stage investors in blockchain, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, cybersecurity, and other emerging technologies that are set to disrupt almost every sector of the global economy.
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Spanish banking giant Banco Santander has recently the launch of its new international payment system that is based on the revolutionary blockchain technology to retail customers across the four European nations – Spain, Brazil, UK, and Poland. The bank also said that in the coming months it will roll out the services to other destinations as well.
The new payment services dubbed as the Santander One Pay FX will facilitate global fund transfer for its customers taking place the same day or to the max on the other day. The service also shows the exact amount that will be received by the recipient in the destination currency before initiating the transfer.
The banking giant has confirmed that its service will be powered by the xCurrent distributed ledger technology that is owned by San Franciso-based blockchain startup . This announcement comes just in a period of two months when the Spanish Banking Group its ties with Ripple, back in February.
The bank confirms that it will be bringing additional services for its customers besides enabling instant international payment transfers in several markets before the summer this year. With the launch of this current service, Santander claims the crown of being the first bank to roll-out a blockchain-based international payment service to its retail customers across different countries, simultaneously.
While commenting on the launch of this new service, Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, Ana Botín said: “Blockchain technology offers tremendous opportunities to improve the services we offer our customers, and the launch of Santander One Pay FX is the first of many potential applications”.
Botín said that her enthusiasm for this project grew after she saw her son using a rival service that could quickly transfer payments within Spain. Santander has been working for over two years on this payment system before finally launching today to its customers.
Botín further went to describe the service saying: “One Pay FX uses blockchain-based technology to provide a fast, simple and secure way to transfer money internationally – offering value, transparency, and the trust and service customers expect from a bank like Santander. From today, customers in the UK can use One Pay to transfer money across Europe and to the US. In Spain, customers can transfer to UK and US, while customers in Brazil and Poland can transfer to the UK.”
She further added: “Transfers to Europe can be made on the same day and we are aiming to deliver instant transfers across several markets by the summer. Our goal is to help the thousands of people who use international payments services every day, and we will be adding more currencies and destinations in the coming months.”
has been investing in Ripple since 2015 through its venture capital fund InnoVentures. Till now the bank is said to have invested over $200 million in Ripple technology while the fund is said to have over 20 investments across the spectrum of financial technology startups in the fields of the blockchain, artificial intelligence, financial advisory, big data and others.
Ripple too has been seen expanding its wings in the blockchain space as it recently made a , in form of XRP tokens, in Blockchain Capital.
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