The strongest company specializing in bitcoin, Blockstream talked about the readiness of the mining solution.
Blockstream talked about his entry into the infrastructure-as-a-service mining industry by posting on his blog message, in which Blockstream CIO Chris Cook and CSO Samson Mow announced the launch of an enterprise service for bitcoin mining and their Mining-pool.
Blockstream's contribution to the ecosystem
Blockstream will support the growth of the Bitcoin ecosystem, encouraging new parties to enter the mining world.
“Co-location in our dedicated data centers is designed to meet the needs of enterprise clients. Our hosted services support rapid deployment of virtually any type of bitcoin mining hardware and give customers full control over their mining operations,” Cook and Mau said.
Mining infrastructure as a service is the latest in a long line of innovative solutions designed to support a larger Bitcoin ecosystem. Blockstream has a long history of developing software innovations aimed at improving, scaling, and strengthening the Bitcoin network.
The company first proposed the concept of linked chains, and a few years after the publication of an official document explaining the technology, Blockstream released the first chain of bitcoin chains called Liquid sidechain. Company manages Blockstream satellite, a network that broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain worldwide 24 / 7 for free, protecting from network outages and providing the opportunity to use Bitcoin to anyone in the world.
The position against the centralization of mining
The company is just now launching mining infrastructure as enterprise-wide services, the company has been supporting the Bitcoin network since 2017 of the year. The startup showed that his decision to join the network of miners to protect the Bitcoin blockchain was motivated by fears of growing centralization in the mining ecosystem.
In 2017, the challenge of the Bitcoin community was a growing threat from mining-oriented technological innovations such as ASICBoost technology. In addition, it seemed that the community could not collectively rally for any of the proposed answers to issues, such as the SegWit debate. As a result, many are concerned that some of the miners will be able to create a situation in which they can have a disproportionate impact on the Bitcoin network.
In order for Bitcoin to maintain its position of a decentralized cryptocurrency that is resistant to censorship, it is very important that the mining network be as diverse, diverse and distributed as possible. Mou and Cook confirm this: “We firmly believe that bitcoin holders and bitcoin companies should participate in mining themselves to help maintain decentralized security of the bitcoin network.”
To counter its concerns about mining centralization, Blockstream has developed a strategy to minimize the impact of any one region or party on the Bitcoin network. Blockstream began to explore places for setting up mining. Located in the Canadian region of Quebec before it achieved its current wildly popular status, Blocksteam uses the region's low-cost and easily accessible hydropower to support its operations.
It is important to note that Canada, along with Iceland, is leading the effort to reduce over-reliance on Asian energy sources for the Bitcoin network.
Currently, concerns about centralization in any part of the Bitcoin ecosystem continue to be a threat. At the recently concluded Bitcoin 2019 conference in San Francisco, the value of decentralization as an element of security has been the subject of close attention. Genesis Mining CEO Marco Strang said centralization of the Bitcoin mining network remains a serious problem.
Mining as a Blockstream service
To provide reliable operational support for Bitcoin miners and any potential miners, Blockstream provides a turnkey solution designed to minimize the high barriers to entry faced by potential miners.
The complexities of infrastructure design, as well as issues related to human resources and costs, are arranged in packages with “enterprise-class colocation services that allow the customer to monitor and control their mining equipment with complete transparency”
Blockstream service users will have access to tools for remote management and management of their mining equipment. In addition, Blockstream will help provide operational support in terms of logistics, such as the purchase and supply of mining equipment.
Similarly, Blockstream's mining as a service package also includes the design and assembly of custom mining installations with on-site support from technical experts in the event of a downtime.
Finally, Blockstream allows its customers to remotely control their miners using the control panel, which provides real-time analytics and control over each device.
Blockstream self-mining is an impressive showcase, accounting for less than 1% of the global hash rate of the Bitcoin network. The firm strives to provide the same level of service to its clients. At present, it has provided over 300 MW and equipment from various manufacturers around the world. The new mining infrastructure service has already attracted two major clients, namely the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
In addition, the company announced the launch of its own mining pool along with the Blockstream Mining colocation service. Blockstream Pool is the world's first data mining pool using BetterHash technology. BetterHash is an advanced mining pool protocol, developed by the firm to help individual miners gain greater control over the choice of transactions included in their blocks. Theoretically, the protocol will help reduce the influence exerted by the operators of large mining pools, as smaller parties will still have voting rights. After successful launch Testnet during the year, the Blockstream pool will be available only to customers of the Blockstream Mining service.