BTCS increases ethereum-mining hosting business

Blockchain technology company BTCS, Inc. announced last week that it had increased its ethereum-mining hosting business from approximately 50 kilowatts announced in March, 2016 to approximately 150kw.

Charles Allen, CEO of BTCS, Inc. explained in a press release sent to CoinReport that BTCS had sold some of its early-generation ASIC (“application specific integrated circuit”) servers due to increased difficulty in bitcoin mining. He said the company was in early discussions with a designer of specialized ether mining servers, and there’s the possibility that BTCS could be the exclusive hardware assembler for that designer.

“Unlike ASIC servers, Ether mining servers utilize off the shelf computer hardware, custom software and can be made-to-order with limited capital investment,” said Allen in the press release. “We have the space to operate the assembly business at our NC facility, and we are in talks to become the exclusive distributor. While we can provide no assurances that any partnership or relationship will materialize, we are currently hosting their first generation prototype servers. We plan to provide updates on this initiative as it develops.”

In his reply to CoinReport’s email asking how he sees ethereum evolving, Allen expressed enthusiasm for the potential of ethereum.

“We are very excited about the evolution and development of [ethereum]. There has been tremendous interest in from major institutions in the technology which should ensure resources are deployed further its development,” said Allen.

Indeed, ethereum has earned a significant amount of press coverage this year due to its growing market cap and garnered interest from various companies. Contrasted with ethereum is bitcoin, which is caught in the midst of a block size debate. When asked if ethereum will surpass bitcoin as the world’s leading digital currency, Allen expressed uncertainty.

“Bitcoin is still a very valuable digital asset and has a proven technology and security despite poor press coverage,” Allen said.

Allen also wrote that he “100%” agrees with Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam’s viewpoint, expressed in a Medium blog post, that bitcoin and ethereum don’t need to compete with each other and that the progress made by both is good news for digital currencies all around. Ehrsam detailed in the post how ethereum is ahead of bitcoin in several ways.

Image credits:

Logo – Via BTCS’s press release

Allen’s photo – Courtesy of BTCS