Chain Partners, a comprehensive digital asset company, unveiled a plan to release a Bitcoin cloud mining product Tuesday. The Bitcoin cloud mining is a sort of agent service in which consumers receive mined Bitcoin every day while Chain Partners is in charge of a whole process of mining from purchases of mining equipment to the installation and operation of equipment.

The mining equipment secured by Chain Partners is AntMiner S17, the next-generation mining equipment released by Bitmain, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining company, in February. Using a 7-nanometer chip, the equipment boasts the performance of 53 terra hashes per second (TH/s), more than three times the previous mining equipment S9 that had boasted 16 TH/s, and energy efficiency of 28.6%. The S17 equipment has sold out in Bitmain’s official sales outlets because of the recent rise in Bitcoin prices and the forward contract for the October delivery is traded with premiums of more than 60%. Chain Partners Tuesday began to receive the first batch of equipment that would be shipped from mid-July and begin to mine in early August. The price for 1 TH/s is 69,600 won (VAT excluded), and the price is more than 45% cheaper, considering that the new S17 AntMiner equipment is traded for 128,300 won per TH/s. Chain Partners said 41% of the first batch, 4,245 TH/s, had been reserved through the two-day pre-order over the weekend.

Chain Partners fixed electric bills and operational expenses during the one-year contract period. If changes take place in the contract period, the difference is to be shouldered by Chain Partners. Chain Partners will compensate the cost for equipment out of order with proceeds from its own equipment to ensure up to 99% in the operation rate of customers’ mining equipment.

“People usually think that Bitcoin can be bought only in cryptocurrency exchanges but mining is another way of having Bitcoin,” said Chain Partners CEO Pyo Chul-min, adding that “we started the mining agent service so that anyone could opt for that.”

“Mining is an investment available when Bitcoin is believed to rally in the long term in the run-up to its third halving scheduled for May next year. Investors need to be cautious because of the risk of losing money,” a Chain Partners official said.

In the meantime, newly minted Bitcoin is designed to halve every four years. There was halving in 2012 and 2016, respectively, and fluctuations were high for one year right before the halving. /shim@decenter.kr

Shim Doo-bo