Decentralized finance (DeFi) markets may have cooled down over the past year, but the technology powering these applications continues to advance. In particular, smart contract platforms that enable transactions to take place across DeFi applications are maturing to meet enterprise requirements. While it’s notable that enterprises have previously shown interest in DeFi use cases, smart contract limitations have hampered adoption. A report published by Grayscale Research in March puts this in perspective, noting that “Despite handling millions of transactions per day, smart contract platforms in their current state would be incapable of handling even 10% of the worlds’ internet traffic.” …

Bitcoin (BTC) mining company BIT Mining plans to invest $12.14 million to develop an 85-megawatt crypto mining center in Ohio. As the company that owns the entire mining pool business operated under BTC.com, BIT Mining set up a joint venture agreement with Viking Data Centers to establish the Bitcoin mining facility. As part of the JV agreement, BIT Mining will pay $10.84 million in cash to Viking Data with the remaining sum to be settled in cash or company stock. Following its investment in Viking Data and the subsequent JV agreement, BIT Mining will own 51% of the Ohio Bitcoin …

Estonian technology conglomerate Burfa is turning to Bitmain to supply key cryptocurrency mining infrastructure to its Narva-based data center, offering a glimpse into the arms race underway for high-performance computing resources. The $26-million agreement will allow Burfa to double its data center capacity and secure a steady supply of processing equipment over the coming months. The industrial sector is facing an acute shortage of specialized GPUs and SSDs as more of these resources get gobbled up by crypto-intensive firms that have ramped up Bitcoin (BTC) mining during the bull market. Burfa will start receiving the new equipment as early as …

Blockchain technology company Blockstream has announced details of its Bitcoin mining services. In a blog post on Aug. 8, the company revealed two massive data centers for enterprise class co-location services, along with Blockstream Pool, using the BetterHash protocol. Its aim is to maintain the decentralization of the Bitcoin network. Your Bitcoin mining equipment, Blockstream’s data-centers The data centers, located in Quebec and Georgia, account for a combined 300 megawatts of energy capacity. At full capacity, populated with the latest mining rigs, this could account for around 7.5% of the entire network hashrate. The facilities provide a turnkey solution for …