Aurelia Butler

Converting existing mining sites to HPC infrastructure involves large capital expenditure. While some components can be reused, most of the existing infrastructure would need to be rebuilt to support HPC operations. Currently, HPC data centers require an investment of $8-10 million per megawatt (MW) in capex, excluding GPUs, whereas a Bitcoin mining site typically costs between $300,000 and $800,000 per MW, excluding ASICs.Most Bitcoin miners do not possess GPUs, which were commonly used for Ethereum mining, and instead employ ASICs for Bitcoin mining. Consequently, they lack the excess GPU capacity necessary for HPC tasks.Bitcoin miners venturing into AI are predominantly acquiring GPUs, typically H100s, and co-locating them in third-party sites as a quicker and less capex-intensive way to generate AI revenue compared to building dedicated data centers. However, Needham believes it is more advantageous for miners to own their data centers, especially if they have access to cheap power, rather than relying on third-party sites for GPU co-location.Large publicly traded Bitcoin miners plan to more than double their power capacity over the next 12-24 months, inclusive of their mining and AI/HPC expansion plans. Location is a critical factor, with Needham favoring northern, less dusty climates over regions like West Texas due to temperature and dust/wind conditions.According to the report, Applied Digital Corp (NASDAQ:APLD), Core Scientific Inc (NASDAQ:CORZ), and Terawulf Inc (NASDAQ:WULF) are leading in their ambitions for HPC sites. Companies like Hut 8 Corp (NASDAQ:HUT), Bit Digital Inc (NASDAQ:BTBT), HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd (NASDAQ:HIVE), Iris Energy Ltd (NASDAQ:IREN), and Bit Brother Ltd (OTC:BETSF) are currently focusing on co-locating GPUs in third-party sites.The report further details that Applied Digital has the most ambitious AI/HPC site plans among covered companies. Originally a Bitcoin miner, the company no longer classifies itself as such after selling a ~200 MW Bitcoin mining hosting site to Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA). Meanwhile, Bit Digital has become the first cloud service platform in Asia to offer NVIDIA DGX SuperPod H100s. “We do not include any revenue from AI/HPC in our model but will be monitoring for updates as 2024 progresses,” Needham noted.HUT 8 Mining also launched a third-party HPC service, despite currently having no revenue from it. The company executed a purchase order for 1,000 Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) H100s and secured a $20 million annual run-rate contract with a VC-backed AI large language model customer, with revenues expected to begin in the second half of 2024.Elsewhere, Bit Brother has a three-year contract to provide GPU resources to a customer developing its own proprietary large-language model (LLM) and expects $50 million in annual revenue following a 2023 funding round. Moreover, Core Scientific’s multi-year contract with CoreWeave is expected to generate more than $100 million in total potential revenue.Finally, HIVE Blockchain had majority of H100s delivered in March 2024, and the company reports growing positive HPC operating income with $25 million in run-rate annual HPC revenue guidance as of Q1 2024. More

Easing concerns over a massive potential sell event by defunct exchange Mt Gox offered Bitcoin some relief. But this was countered by strength in the dollar, which rose to an over two-week high as anticipation of more economic data kept traders largely biased towards the greenback.Bitcoin climbed 0.5% in the past 24 hours to $68,109.3 by 08:42 ET (12:42 GMT). The world’s largest cryptocurrency remained well within a $60,000 to $70,000 trading range established since mid-March.Inflation, rate angst keeps Bitcoin under pressure Crypto markets were reeling from a string of hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve over the past two weeks, as several policymakers signaled that the bank needed more convincing that inflation was coming down.This put upcoming U.S. economic readings squarely in focus. A revised reading on first-quarter U.S. gross domestic product data is due later on Thursday, with any signs of economic resilience giving the Fed more headroom to keep rates higher for longer.More closely watched will be PCE price index data- the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge- which is due on Friday. Traders were seen steadily pricing out expectations that the Fed will cut rates in September- which boosted the dollar and weighed on most risk-driven assets, including crypto.High rates bode poorly for crypto, given that they diminish the appeal of speculative assets. Still, recent data showed that crypto investment products saw a third consecutive week of inflows, with Ether seeing increased inflows on optimism over the U.S. approval of an exchange-traded fund that directly tracks the world’s second-largest token. Ether fell 1.6% to $3,750.05 on Thursday, retreating further from recent two-month peaks as hype over the immediate approval of a spot Ether ETF died down. While the Securities and Exchange Commission approved applications from major exchanges to list any potential spot ETF products, the regulator still needed to engage with applications from potential issuers of the products, meaning that a listing was still a long ways away. Other altcoins fell amid jitters over interest rates. Solana and XRP fell 0.7% and 1.7%, respectively, while among meme tokens, Investing.com Shiba Inu Index and DOGE/USD lost roughly 3% each.Intriguingly, DBS, the largest bank in Singapore, is a significant holder of ether, according to on-chain analytics firm Nansen.The firm said a blockchain address, identified as belonging to DBS, holds 173,753 ETH, valued at $647 million at the current market price.Nansen also noted that this address has generated over $200 million from its ether investments.DBS is no stranger to the crypto market, given that the bank provides a variety of services such as digital asset custody, a trading exchange for security tokens, and a portfolio management app that covers both traditional and crypto assets.A recent report from the bank emphasized the increasing interest in the crypto market from retail investors, high-frequency traders, and hedge funds. More

This time, he took to his X (formerly known as Twitter) handle to talk about the recently approved spot Ethereum ETFs and to bash them.The Bitcoin maximalist believes that spot Ethereum ETFs (“securitized ETH,” as he put it) are facing no demand at the moment and that Bitcoiners are not going to rethink their models because of those spot Ethereum ETFs. Last week, Mow tweeted that it was investors’ “last chance to sell ETH above 0.05 BTC.”Saylor explained that this positive SEC decision on Ethereum makes the entire asset class bigger, and it can help attract more money into Bitcoin itself.The largest amount of BTC was grabbed by BlackRock – 1,503 BTC worth $102+ million. Fidelity added 503 BTC, VanEck acquired 206 BTC. Grayscale saw an outflow of 47 Bitcoin. By now, BlackRock has surpassed Grayscale as the largest spot Bitcoin ETF holding $19.59 billion in Bitcoin versus Grayscale’s $19.6 billion.Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin added 1.35%, rising above the $68,000 price level. However, this marginal rise was followed by a pullback that took the world’s flagship cryptocurrency back to $67,430 – that is $200 higher than the point from which Bitcoin rose yesterday.This article was originally published on U.Today More

According to ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood, cryptocurrency has become a U.S. election issue, attributing the sudden approval of ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to this political shift.Speaking at Consensus 2024, Wood said, “The read was it was not going to be approved. It was absolutely not going to be approved. If it were to have been approved the regular way, we would have been getting questions from the SEC. No one was getting questions from the SEC beforehand.”Wood, who also serves as ARK Invest’s chief investment officer, pointed out that sentiment evolved around the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) in the House. The act passed last week with bipartisan support, reflecting its impact as an election-year issue.Another major factor, according to Wood, was former President Donald Trump’s support for bitcoin and cryptocurrency. “That week, he said he would accept campaign donations in crypto,” which, she noted, drew attention from the administration.Wood also discussed the potential approval of a Solana ETF, but she was skeptical about meme coin-focused funds due to the reluctance of brokers and investment advisors to accept anything beyond the primary cryptocurrencies.In her speech, Wood also stressed ARK’s stance that bitcoin (BTC) is a public good. She mentioned that the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, which was approved in January with a fee of 0.21%, was designed to be accessible to a broad audience. “We should make [the ETF] as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, so keep the fee very low,” she stated.Wood also announced that ARK will allocate a percentage of its private fund revenues to support Bitcoin developers, ensuring they receive consistent backing regardless of the ETF’s profitability.Wood is known for her optimistic outlook on bitcoin, predicting that BTC could reach $1.5 million by 2030 and describing it as a “financial super highway.” Despite the progress in approving ether ETFs, Wood reaffirmed her preference for bitcoin over ether when asked if she would rather hold bitcoin or ether. “Bitcoin, hands down. No question about it. It is a global monetary system. It is a technology, and it is a new asset class. Those are three big ideas in one, and nothing else in the crypto world is competing with it,” she concluded.  More