2020 Bitcoin Mining Recap

January

Jan-16: The Uzbekistan government outlines a plan to create a national mining pool

Jan-21: A partner of Coinmint filed to dissolve the company after disputes with their fellow partner over the direction of the company

Jan-27: Iran grants over 1,000 mining licenses

February

Feb-19: Layer1 estimates they will have 30% of the network hashrate by end of 2021

Feb-27: Bitmain releases the Antminer S19 series

Feb-28: Coronavirus outbreak delays ASIC shipments coming from China

March

Mar-5: Greenidge, an New York power plant makes national news for mining 5.5 BTC/day

Mar-12: Wes Fulford, Bitfarms' CEO leaves the company

Mar-17: Blockware releases mining report

Mar-23: Antminer S19 Pro and S19 prices announced

Mar-26: Network difficulty fell by 15.95%, the second-largest decline in history

Mar-27: Digital Farms shuts down its mining operation

Mar-30: HIVE acquires a 30 MW mining facility from Cryptologic

Mar-31: Braiins launches BOS+ firmware

April

Apr-1: Binance launches a mining pool

Apr-8: Ultra Mining Gets Shut Down by Texas Regulators

Apr-9: Bytepool shuts down

Apr-17: ASICseer issues a cease and desist order to Scott Offord

Apr-17: MicroBT launches Whatsminer M30S++ and WhatsMiner M30S+

Apr-20: Artcos Capital and Blockware close first public sale and leaseback transaction for ASIC financing

Apr-25: Ebang files for IPO with the SEC

Apr-28: Northern Data acquires data center specialist Kelvin Emtech Group

Apr-30: Kazakhstan legalizes crypto mining

May

May-4: Iran issues mining license to iMiner

May-5: Reports start coming out of the high Bitmain S17 failure rate

May-6: VBit raises a seed funding round led by Golden Age

May-7: Cambridge builds an interactive Bitcoin mining map

May-11: Block reward is reduced from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC

May-13: Lubian pool shows up on block explorers with ~5% of the network hashrate

May-13: Hyperblock shuts down

May-14: TSMC announces plan for Arizona facility

May-15: FTX launches Network Difficulty based futures

May-19: Coinmetrics puts out Nonce Analysis for S9 usage

May-19: Coinmint dissolution court order is issued during shareholder legal battle

May-21: Iranian President calls for national crypto mining strategy

May-25: Hydro season begins in Sichuan, China

May-26: Bitfury announced a new investment vehicle for accredited investors

June

Jun 1: SMIC, the chip supplier for Canaan announces it's going public

Jun-1: Leo Zhang launches Anicca Research

Jun-3: Poolin partners with BlockFi for financial products

Jun-4: Canaan releases new Avalon 1146, 1146 PRO and 1166 series

Jun-10: Micree halts shipment of Bitmain's Shenzhen line in management battle

Jun-10: Hut 8 issues overnight marketed public offering of units

Jun-15: Kyrgyzstan announces plan to legalize mining

Jun-19: Lancium announced a deal with, MP2 Energy a subsidiary of Shell

Jun-22: Micree offers share buyback to Jihan at a \$4bn valuation

Jun-26: Core Scientific purchases 17,595 S19s

Jun-26: Ebang gets listed on Nasdaq

July

Jul-6: Iran announced that miners must register with the state

Jul-7: Flooding begins in Sichuan threatening the Three Gorges Dam and damaging mining farms

Jul-17: Luxor launches mining data website, Hashrate Index

Jul-20: Taproot begins moving forward

Jul-22: Kraken launches new statistical model to estimate hashrate

Jul-25: 10,000 Antminers go missing in Inner Mongolia during Bitmain power struggle

August

Aug-1: Layer1 became the first operational Controllable Load Resource as ruled by the Ercot

Aug-4: Texas regulators move forward With plan to reduce oilfield flaring

Aug-5: Bitmain delays June/July orders until September/October.

Aug-9: Shell partners with Asperitas to create liquid immersion solutions

Aug 10: TSMC assigns Bitmain as one of their customers to receive the new 5nm chips

Aug 10: Kyrgyzstan proposes 15% tax on bitcoin mining

Aug-14: Lancium sues Layer1 for patent infringement

Aug-14: International BD lead, Thomas Heller leaves F2Pool and joins Hashr8

Aug-17: Canaan releases Avalon A1166 Pro

Aug-18: DMG releases Mine Manager software

Aug-24: ASIC manufacturer, StrongU launches a new Bitcoin ASIC.

Aug-24: The Government of China's Inner Mongolia canceled preferential electricity rates to miners

Aug-27: DCG unveils new mining subsidiary

Aug-28: Equinor partners with Crusoe to reduce flaring

Aug-28: Yang Zuoxing has stepped down from chairman at MicroBT

Aug-29: Babel Finance loans for mining equipment with with Hash Times and Hengjia Group

September

Sep-2: Kazakhstan’s Government said to invest \$715mm into mining over the next 3 years

Sep-8: Bitmain sues Poolin over non-competes

Sep-17: Core Scientific and Bitmain partner on Antminer repair center

Sep-21: Blockfills finances rigs for Bitfarms

Sep-21: Canaan launches the Avalon 1246

Sep-23: Venezuelan Government announces plans for a national mining pool

Sep-25: MicroBT sets up a facility in South East Asia

October

Oct-6: Galaxy Digital launches mining arm and is joined by Amanda Fabiano previously at Fidelity

Oct-7: Core Scientific and Luxor Mine Bitcoin For Congress be forced to join

Oct-7: Argo entered into a LOI to acquire GPU.one's Quebec facilities

Oct-8: Upstream Data launches their own fabrication facility

Oct-12: Hashr8 launches the AirBnB of Colocations, Compass

Oct-13: Marathon formed a JV with Beowulf Energy to secure 105MW of power

Oct-20: DOCTORMiner launched the first South American Mining Pool in partnership with Luxor

Oct-26: Bitfarms announcing an MOU for 200 megawatts in South America

Oct-29: Iran created a new law that will require miners to sell their Bitcoin to the Central Bank

Oct-29: Blockseer (DMG Blockchain) launched a OFAC-compliant mining pool

Oct-29: Rainy season in Sichuan, China ends

November

Nov-5: Celsius Network finances machines for Argo hosted with Core Scientific

Nov-7: Bitmain releases new rack-style miners called AntRack

Nov-10: TSMC, approved an investment to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Arizona

Nov-15: Pools signal support for Taproot

Nov-18: Okex mining pool dropped out of the top 10 mining pools after suspending withdrawals

Nov-23: Hive Blockchain entered into an MOU to buy GPU.one’s 50MW facility in New Brunswick

Nov-24: Bitmain reveals S19j and S19jPro series at the Matrixport mining conference

Nov-24: GAM releases Gas-to-Hash calculator

December

Dec-1: BOS+ releases support for S17+, T17, and T17+

Dec-3: Titan launches new mining pool

Dec-4: Riot files \$200mm shelf offering

Dec-8: Square crypto launches mining initiative.

Dec-9: Bitfury to sell at least part of Its 38% stake in Hut 8

Dec-14: Riot partners with Lancium and Enigma in new facility

Dec-14: Arctos Capital announced a new \$6.5mm financing deal for Bitfury

Dec-15: Alex Liegl, CEO and Founder of Layer1 resigns from company.

Dec-21: Bitmain splits its entities between Micree and Jihan

Dec-28: Marathon enters into a contract with Bitmain to purchase 70,000 S19s

Dec-29: Distributed Ledger acquires Crypto Mining Tools

Dec-30: Argo joins Luxor's investment round