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6,000 old bitcoin-mining machines will be refurbished and sold overseas after the long-awaited halving event, Bloomberg reported.
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The halving event will whittle down the reward for miners, which means they’ll be looking for more cost-effective ways to operate.
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Outdated machines are being moved to countries with lower electricity costs, like Ethiopia, where they can still be put to use.
Crypto miners are getting ready for the long-awaited bitcoin halving event slated for next month, which will cut down their rewards for introducing new tokens onto the blockchain.
One way they’re bracing for the change? Shipping old bitcoin mining machines overseas.
There will soon be 6,000 old computers being packaged up to be shipped abroad, Bloomberg reported on Monday. SunnySide Digital is a crypto wholesaler operating a facility in Colorado Springs which will refresh a several thousand outdated computers and resell them to miners in countries like Ethiopia, Tanzania, Paraguay and Uruguay.
That’s because, after April, crypto miners will be rewarded with 3.125 bitcoin for cracking complex puzzles instead of the 6.25 they have been for the past four years. Which means miners have to figure out how to lower their production costs in order to still turn a profit.
Miners use big computers to solve complex problems to add new tokens to the blockchain, making energy use one of the biggest expenses miners have to budget for. So while some miners will upgrade to more energy-efficient computers and phase out the old tech to adapt to the halving, others will send old computers abroad where the machines can still make a profit because of low electricity costs.
One SunnySide official told Bloomberg that the process is a “natural migration,” which is only accelerated by the halving.
There has actually been an uptick in private mining activity approaching the halving as older miners get “one last squeeze” out of their old mining machines before the bitcoin reward drops, a crypto outlet, The Miner Mag, found.
The halving event is also expected to trigger a big price jump in bitcoin. The token is currently trading at $66,911, up over 50% this year, although down from recent record-highs of $73,798.
Read the original article on Business Insider