Welcome to the NiceHash crypto news digest. Let's see what happened these last few days.

Bitmain Invests $53.9M in Core Scientific

Core Scientific announced a $53.9M investment from Bitmain, the world's leading ASIC miner manufacturer. This deepens their partnership, including an agreement for Core to acquire 27,000 Bitmain S19J XP ASICs.

Set for Q4 2023 delivery, this will boost Core's self-mining hash rate by 4.1 EH/s. Both companies plan to upgrade older ASICs at Core's centers. As of August 2023, Core operated 206,000 miners with a rate of 22.0 EH/s.

Both large mining and small Bitcoin mining operations can benefit from higher earnings when selling their hashrate with NiceHash. If you own a SHA256 ASIC, see how to connect it to NiceHash.

Mt. Gox Repayment Deadline Extended to 2024

Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee for the now-defunct Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange, has extended the repayment deadline for creditors from October 31, 2023, to October 31, 2024. This decision follows the time needed for creditors to provide required information and the necessary discussions with financial institutions.

Although repayments for some creditors might start by year's end, the exact dates remain uncertain. Mt. Gox, based in Japan, was a dominant Bitcoin exchange but faced a downfall after a 2011 hack, culminating in its 2014 collapse, affecting 24,000 creditors.

Currently, the estate holds assets including 138,000 BTC valued at around $3.7 billion. Earlier in 2023, the U.S. DOJ charged two Russians for stealing significant Bitcoin amounts from Mt. Gox between 2011-2014.

Bitcoin Ordinals' Creator Proposes Shift in Inscription Numbering System

Casey Rodarmor, lead developer of Bitcoin Ordinals, has proposed a change to the unique numbering system for NFTs, aiming to streamline the protocol's code. Historically, these inscription numbers were central to the digital art's identity.

However, Rodarmor believes the current system complicates code and hampers development. The new approach would make these numbers "permanently unstable," with revised numbers differing by roughly 1% from the original. While many support the shift, concerns arise for users who valued specific numbers. Despite this, inscriptions can still be sorted by timestamps.

Since their launch, Bitcoin Ordinals have represented a large portion of the network activity, often leading to blocks with exceptionally high rewards. If you would like to mine Bitcoin blocks without the need to own any hardware, you can try EasyMining.

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