From The Bitfury Group Newsroom

Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.

He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."

Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.

Bitfury Group, in collaboration with the open-source Lightning Network community, has released a white paper that explores how the in-development micropayments protocol could more effectively route bitcoin payments between users when launched.

The second-ever Bitcoin block reward halving is estimated to take place in a little under two weeks, and the overall effects of this event are still somewhat of an unknown. There has been a runup in the Bitcoin price over the past month, and many claim this is due to the upcoming halving, where the number of new bitcoins created roughly every 10 minutes is cut in half (from 25 to 12.5). To get some informed opinions about what could happen next, Bitcoin Magazine reached out to BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov and BTCC COO Samson Mow.

With Stewart on vacation, the blockchain takes over the podcast! In episode 121, Jason Weinstein and Alan Cohn talk all things bitcoin, blockchain, and distributed ledger technology, and interview Jamie Smith, Ex-Global Chief Communications Officer for the BitFury Group, one of the largest full-service blockchain technology companies.

New America, blockchain company the Bitfury Group and the non-governmental organization the National Democratic Institute announced today that they have formed the Blockchain Trust Accelerator Initiative, which aims to connect governments with technologists and funders to hasten the adoption of the technology for social good and governance.

Blockchain is the hottest topic in fintech. Technology editor Joy Macknight asks Valery Vavilov, CEO, BitFury, to sum up the technology in under two minutes.

It seemed the eclectic mix of people — authors, an aerospace engineer, former Pentagon and CIA and Department of Homeland Security officials, a musician, a foreign exchange and derivatives specialist, the founder of a Chinese fintech museum — could, through their respective industries and communities, help unleash the transformation many believe this technology can trigger. As that was the mission of sponsors BitFury Group, a Bitcoin mining, chip manufacturing and blockchain services company and MaiTai Global, a non-profit that holds events worldwide bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and athletes, fait accompli.

The world’s most powerful two-phase immersion cooling (2PIC) project, which will be deployed in a 40+ MW data center being constructed by BitFury Group, is currently underway in the Republic of Georgia.

What is arguably the most exclusive blockchain industry conference, the Blockchain Summit, sponsored by the BitFury Group and MaiTai Global, kicks off its second annual event this Saturday on long-time innovator, futurist and entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Caribbean. This year, the notable attendees of the Blockchain Summit include Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament whom the Wall Street Journal called “Europe’s Most Wired Politician;” Jim Newsome, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the New York Mercantile Exchange; and Beth Moses, aerospace engineer and astronaut for Virgin Galactic.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Bitcoin narrative is the trajectory of its price. Since its birth seven years ago, this abstract currency that only exists as computer code and/or in a small but rabid collective conscious has gone from completely worthless to almost $450 for a single Bitcoin.
Soon, it will reach a milestone that could boost the price even further — what is known in the Bitcoin community as a halving event.