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

IBM Introduces New Cold Storage Tech for Crypto Assets

IBM has released a cryptographic signing technology for handling digital assets in cold storage, reducing the risk associated with manual procedures while keeping assets at arm's-length from an internet connection.

The tech giant said that its IBM Hyper Protect Offline Signing Orchestrator (OSO) helps protect high-value transactions by offering additional security layers, including disconnected network operations, time-based security and electronic transaction approval by multiple stakeholders.

If you are looking for an alternative to cold storage, NiceHash automatically creates all the crypto wallets you need when you sign up, making it easy for day to day transactions.

Texas Bitcoin Mining Operation Shutdown By Host’s Armed Security

While the suit from GMO against Whinstone is still under litigation, the legal tussle between Rhodium and Whinstone continues on. On Monday, Whinstone Inc.’s private security entered the Rockdale, Texas based premises of Rhodium Enterprises in order to remove employees to cease operation of their 125MW Bitcoin mining facility.

The dispute centered around hosting and energy agreements between the two parties, with Whinstone seeking damages for alleged unpaid hosting fees and a declaratory judgment asserting its right to terminate these agreements.

It’s worth noting that in times where hasrate is offline for any reason, you can always rely on NiceHash to rent hashrate to avoid downtime in your mining operations.

Crypto Miners Keep Busy Ahead of Halving With Accelerated Machine Buys

Ahead of the halving, institutional miners are going full steam with the purchasing of new mining equipment. The largest miner purchase of the year came from Riot Platforms this Monday, in the form of 66,560 MicroBT machines for $290.5 million. Bitfarms also added machines, last week buying nearly 36,000 Bitmain T21 miners. The commitments made in 2023 by public miners amount to roughly $1.2 billion, with about $750 million in deals inked in the past two months.

With the upcoming halving, now is the time to seize the opportunity and mine as many blocks as you can with our EasyMining!

Bitcoin Dev Luke Dashjr Calls Inscriptions 'Spam,' Community Members Push Back

The rise in popularity of Ordinals on Bitcoin earlier this year fueled debate over whether or not inscriptions representing things like NFTs and BRC-20 tokens on Bitcoin should exist. 

Some argue that these elements are unintended consequences of Bitcoin’s SegWit and Taproot upgrades, making inscriptions more economically feasible, and should be removed from Bitcoin. 

Recently Bitcoin (BTC) developer and co-founder of the Ocean mining pool Luke Dashjr launched a tirade of criticism toward inscriptions on X describing them as "spam" on the Bitcoin blockchain.

But the community pushed back as many others maintain that such unintended consequences are an integral part of any upgrade, and usage should continue. It’s also worth noting that such use cases lead to higher revenue for miners, as in the recent block found on our EasyMining!

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