Transnistria Welcomes Crypto Miners, Plans to Expand theIndustry

Transnistria Welcomes Crypto Miners, Plans to Expand the Industry

Economy & Regulation

The government of Transnistria has recognized the importance of cryptocurrency mining for the territory’s economy and budget. The unrecognized republic in Eastern Moldova now plans to expand the industry by attracting more miners with a crypto-friendly business climate and favorable regulations.   

Also read: CEO of Romanian Exchange Coinflux Arrested on US Warrant

Tiraspol Plans for 100 MW of Mining Capacity

Transnistria Welcomes Crypto Miners, Plans to Expand the IndustryEarlier this year, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) adopted legislation that legalized crypto mining and provided incentives for foreign investors to set up mining farms within its borders. Under its provisions, a free economic zone was established for these companies and authorities promised to provide the necessary infrastructure, including unrestricted access to the Transnistrian electrical grid.

The new law “On the development of information blockchain-technologies in the PMR” also allowed tariff-free imports of mining equipment and exempted mining incomes from taxation. As a result, facilities with a total consumption of between 5 and 7 MW of electricity are now operating in the country.

But the government in Tiraspol doesn’t want to stop there. According to its prime minister, Transnistria plans to increase that number to 100 MW and has already managed to secure the needed investments. In an interview recently broadcasted by two local TV channels, Aleksandr Martynov stated:

We adopted a fairly liberal law that stimulates mining activities in Transnistria. We also isolated them from our tax system.

The head of the executive power further emphasized that Pridnestrovian authorities do not exercise any control over the revenues from the production of cryptocurrencies and don’t claim any portion of the income generated by entities that operate mining facilities. He added that the main goal set by the government is to sell more electricity to the bitcoin farms, and Transnistria can offer a lot of it at a low price.

Miners Utilize Excess Generating Capacity

Transnistria Welcomes Crypto Miners, Plans to Expand the IndustryThe largest producer of electricity in the region is the Russian-owned Moldavskaya GRES, a thermal power station built on the shores of Lake Kuchurgan on the Ukrainian border. It has an installed capacity of 2,520 MW. The station burns mainly Russian natural gas which the self-proclaimed republic does not even pay.

The fuel is billed to Moldova which claims sovereignty over the separatist territory in a frozen conflict with the government in Tiraspol that dates back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The $6 billion of money owed by the Kuchurgan power station are considered part of Moldova’s debt to the Russian supplier, Gazprom.

Cryptocurrency miners help to utilize the excess capacity of the power plant. And more mining farms means higher revenues for the station, which translates into increased budget receipts for Transnistria, Prime Minister Martynov explained. He added that the projected income, which he described as significant, has already been included in PMR’s draft budget for the next year.

What do you think of Transnistria’s policies towards the crypto mining industry? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Make sure you do not miss any important Bitcoin-related news! Follow our news feed any which way you prefer; via Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, RSS or email (scroll down to the bottom of this page to subscribe). We’ve got daily, weekly and quarterly summaries in newsletter form. Bitcoin never sleeps. Neither do we.

Three Bitcoin Lies That Just Won’t Die

Three Bitcoin Lies That Just Won’t Die

News

Did you hear that China’s just banned Bitcoin? Or that mining is killing the planet? Course you did. It’s hard to ignore the FUD when it’s all around you, like a thick fog that just won’t shift. Some Bitcoin falsehoods are so pernicious and pervasive they they refuse to die, despite all efforts to set the record straight. Here are three of the worst.

Also read: Political Decentralization: Freeing the Internet From Monopolists With Crypto-Tech

‘Bitcoin Is Locked in a Death Spiral’

A death spiral sounds hella cool, like something out of a “Star Wars” movie, but the reality is more humdrum. The term, which is being bandied about a lot this week, describes falling BTC prices leading to falling hashrates as miners are disincentivized to secure the network.

Three Bitcoin Lies That Just Won't Die
BTC’s hashrate has dropped, but only to the level it was at in August.

Once 1 BTC drops below the break-even cost of mining, say the FUDsters, thousands of miners will power down their machines, leaving the network at risk of getting Vertcoined. Suffice to say, this is bullshit. For one thing, bitcoin has a lot further to fall to reach break-even point — around $2,000, most likely — and as hashrate falls, some miners will be incentivized to rejoin the network. The death spiral may sound gnarly, but for all kinds of reasons, it’s not gonna happen.

‘Bitcoin Is Going to Zero’

Why do people keep predicting that BTC will reach zero? Cos it makes for a way better headline than screaming that bitcoin will go to $872.53. Even Bitcoin’s staunchest critics know that BTC will never reach zero, but so long as their bait keeps getting bites, they’ll continue to float this flawed theory. Postulating the lowest price point that bitcoin could conceivably reach is an interesting intellectual exercise. Wherever that floor may be found in a worst-case scenario, however, it’s not even close to zero. High hundreds or low thousands of dollars seems plausible, which would take BTC back to its 2016 days.

One fact that bitcoin critics seem to have missed in the midst of their hyperbolic predictions is that even at $100 a coin, BTC functions exactly as it did at $10K per coin, and will continue to be used by an army of advocates for a plethora of purposes. Price is temporary, but censorship-resistance is permanent.

Hey Trevon, you spelled “Bitconnect” wrong.

‘Bitcoin Has Been Superseded by Next-Gen Blockchains’

Three Bitcoin Lies That Just Won't Die“Yeah, Bitcoin was good in its day, but it’s old tech, bro. It’s all about Blockchain 3.0 now. No one’s gonna use a slow chain that can’t scale and has no governance. It’s all about DAG/DPoS/BFT now.”

Anyone who thinks Bitcoin’s value can be measured in TPS or the number of smart contracts, sidechains and shards it supports doesn’t understand Bitcoin. Getting seduced by newer, sexier blockchains is all part of the learning process. Once it passes, you’ll return to Bitcoin, your first love, more convinced than ever that it’s the one chain to rule them all.

From canards about energy consumption to FUD about death spirals, mainstream media loves a Bitcoin hit piece. Life’s too short to refute all the misinformation out there. Bitcoin lies won’t die any sooner than Bitcoin will. Whether its hashrate be 60 exahash/s or 6, and whether its price be $2,000 or $20,000, falsehoods will continue to circulate. It’s all part of the cycle.

What other Bitcoin lies are mainstream media guilty of spreading? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Blockchain.com

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

Report: Cryptocurrency Job Market Continues to Grow

Report: Cryptocurrency Job Market Continues to Grow

Economics

Glassdoor, a California-based company that runs a recruiting and employer-review website, has published a report by its economic research department that shows growing demand for talent in the cryptocurrency industry, with U.S. job openings soaring by 300 percent year on year.

Also Read: The Daily: Global Cryptocurrency M&As Rise, US Town Halts Mining

Talent Search

Cryptocurrency Talent Continues to Be in High DemandThe report, based on a large sample of online job postings, identified 1,775 openings in the U.S. that included the terms “Bitcoin,” “cryptocurrency” and “blockchain” as of August 2018, up from just 446 such ads a year earlier. “Continued growth in job openings suggests that blockchain employers remain confident in the market opportunity and continue to make long-term investments in their teams,” the researchers said.

New York City and San Francisco lead as the best locations in which to find a job in the U.S. cryptocurrency industry, accounting for 24 percent and 21 percent of all job openings, respectively. In total, the top five cities — which include San Jose, Chicago and Seattle — dominate a combined 59 percent of all job openings on the Glassdoor website. Outside of the U.S., London tops the list of cities with 189 job openings, followed by Singapore, Toronto and Hong Kong.

Among the top 15 companies that are searching for new recruits, Consensys and IBM both have 214 related job listings. Coinbase comes in third with 63 related vacancies. Other familiar names such as Kraken, Circle, Bitgo and Abra are also on the list.

Cryptocurrency Talent Continues to Be in High Demand
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research

Learn to Program

Cryptocurrency Talent Continues to Be in High DemandFor anyone looking to enter the cryptocurrency space, it seems you can’t go wrong by acquiring software programming skills. Software engineers are the most in-demand individuals, with such jobs accounting for 19 percent of all listings. These openings are followed by more specialized positions, such as vacancies for front-end engineers and technology architects; in total, engineering-related positions account for 55 percent of the entire crypto-jobs segment.

The researchers identified a median base salary of $84,884 per year in the cryptocurrency industry, which is considerably higher than the U.S. median salary of $32,423. However, the report cautions that due to the wide range of jobs that are available, salaries can range widely, from just $36,046 to $223,667 per year.

“The reason we see higher salaries for blockchain jobs is due to the location and nature of the jobs available. High cost-of-living cities like New York City and San Francisco dominate the blockchain job market and employers there must offer higher salaries in order to attract talent. Additionally, high skill occupations like software engineers already demand high salaries, compounding this location effect,” the researchers explained. “After accounting for those effects, the high salaries we see for these roles are not unusual.”

Cryptocurrency Talent Continues to Be in High Demand

How should companies reach more people that have cryptocurrency development skills? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.