BTC.COM TO START ETHEREUM MINING POOL VENTURE

BTC.com, the largest Bitcoin mining pool worldwide is adding an Ethereum mining pool that will back Ethereum, as well as Ethereum classic.

BTC.com is itself a subsidiary of Bitmain, one of the largest mining hardware companies in the world and the most prominent manufacturer of ASIC mining hardware. Currently, BTC.com is responsible for 16% of computing power behind Bitcoin, and comprises of 14% of Bitcoin Cash grid.

According to Zhuang Zhong, Director of BTC.com’s mining pool “We expect mining operations to grow to 12 [percent] of ETH total hashrate in the next 12 months.”

BTC.com assets that they were responsible for 21% of Bitcoins produced in 2017. According to press, it plans to offer its new Ethereum mining pool via its pool.btc.com gateway, in addition to providing an Ethereum block explorer and API. Users will also be afforded the flexibility of altering between the two Ethash-based cryptocurrencies, Ethereum and Ethereum classic, for greater profitability.

The move is aimed to “help ethereum scale its mining infrastructure,” as BTC.com stated.

“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,” Zhuang Zhong explained. He also added “We hope to expand Ethereum’s network by relaying those rewards through our FPPS system. By competing to provide the best reward margins along with our product development, we expect mining operations to grow to 12% of ETH total hashrate in the next 12 months.”

According to the press release, a prominent feature of the pools will be the addition of GPU and CPU mining options. This comes under shadow of the fact that Bitmain had earlier released its initial Ethereum-directed, application-exclusive integrated circuit (ASIC) for Ethereum.

Mr. Zhong clarified the inclusion of GPU and CPU mining options as a need emergent in the light of decreased prices in the cryptocurrency market this year, stating that “GPU miners are versatile, still profitable and are not easily replaced in a bear market. It’s common for miners to split investment into both.”

Mr. Zhong further added:

“Also, there are already ASIC miners for ethereum and ethereum classic which are easier to set up and are dedicated to ethash mining. This will save us from supporting a huge list of GPU coins simultaneously.”

The news has not come without triggering a backlash and debates within the Ethereum community, regarding if Ethereum should fork to uphold ASIC resistance. But this has not yet occurred.

In the future, BTC.com looks to add mining pools for other cryptocurrency coins, including litecoin, zcash and monero. However, planning is still in progress, according to Zhong.