Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain said that it will begin publishing regular reports on the size of its in-house mining operation as part of a wider transparency push it has been making prior to going public later this year.
Those statistics , which are current as of July 22, are sure to raise some eyebrows. Bitmain says that its company-owned hardware is mining three algorithms: SHA256 (1,692 PH/s), Ethash (339.7 GH/s), and Scrypt (44.2 GH/s).
The disclosure page does not reveal what coins the firm is mining and how that hashrate is distributed. However, even if the firm’s entire array of SHA256 ASICs was directed at BTC, it would represent just four percent of the network’s hashrate, which currently stands at 41.83 EH/s, according to BitInfoCharts .
Granted, those figures are unaudited, and the company’s fiercest critics have already accused the firm of lying to conceal that they have majority control of the Bitcoin network and perhaps other blockchains, as well.
Bitmain’s mining pool subsidiaries, as CCN.com reported, account for close to half of the BTC hashrate, though as a pool operator it only “controls” this computing power in the sense that it can dictate what block templates miners connected to its pool must use.
Claiming that the firm has been “unfairly accused” of harboring a secret mining operation, the release stated that Bitmain has a “zero tolerance policy” against mining with equipment that has not been released to the general public and only uses these devices in small test batches.
Similarly, Bitmain denied that it purposely mines empty bitcoin blocks — blocks containing no transactions other than the coinbase reward — striking back at critics who have accused the firm of mining empty blocks for sinister purposes such as increasing network congestion (Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu has been a vocal supporter of rival Bitcoin Cash). The company said that it will investigate any instances where it appears that its mining pools are generating an excessive rate of empty blocks and disclose the reasons publicly.
These disclosures come as part of a wider push on the part of Bitmain toward greater transparency, an effort that has seen its ordinarily-opaque CEO make more public appearance s and conduct more interviews.
This transparency initiative isn’t occurring in a vacuum. Bitmain, which recently raised $400 million at a $12 billion valuation, is preparing to go public later this year on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). The firm reportedly hopes to raise another $1 billion at a $15 billion valuation, which would place it roughly on par with semiconductor giant AMD, prior to submitting its IPO filing documents.
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