Bitmain has made another disclosure of the hashrate of its mining machines in a fresh attempt to address accusations that it is capable of controlling the Bitcoin network through hidden hashing power. Bitmain operates two mining pools - Antpool and BTC.top – and directs its equipment to them. However, some accuse the leading ASIC producer of running brand-new machines for months before selling them.
https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/1022086217507135489
For the SHA-256 mining algorithm, Bitmain has 1,692.05 PH/s, which is, in fact, a minuscule part (around 4%) of the current hashrate. For the entire Bitcoin network, mining right now reaches 45,565.5 PH/s, already a near-record level and constantly rising. The results surprised the Bitcoin community, especially since the mining pools organized by Bitmain currently control around 35% of the hashrate, and they have solved even more of the blocks in the past.
https://twitter.com/CobraBitcoin/status/1022118253538291713
However, the pooled mining power may belong to third parties, and Bitmain has shown its side of the equation. The report, intended to become a regular monthly publication, was met with great skepticism.
Additionally, Bitmain has claimed certain standards of mining in a recently released policy on transparency. It has denied accusations of running its new market rigs for profit before selling them. Additionally, the company has promised not to mine empty blocks and has stated that occasional empty blocks may happen due to problems in the Bitcoin protocol, but those are not intentional.
To track the propagation of new ASIC and avoid accusations of keeping the machines running before market, a new Antminer Twitter account has been created. The account will offer production and shipping statistics for newly released machines.
https://twitter.com/Antminer_main/status/1011942437684539392
This summer, Bitmain has added several new hashing algorithms, affecting some CryptoNote coins, as well as ZCash, ZClassic, and Ethereum.
Bitmain states it owns just 339 GH/s in mining power for the Ethereum network, out of more than 292,711.4 GH/s for the entire network in its recent near-record levels. Bitmain has been accused of being behind the significant rise in Ethereum mining, but so far, the company has shown only a small collection of machines. Given that one E3 miner runs at around 180 to 205 MH/s, Bitmain perhaps operates less than 2,000 machines.
For the Scrypt algorithm, Bitmain revealed just 44.19 GH/s, not enough to make a dent on Litecoin, let alone go near a 51% attack.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
