Here's what happened in the world of mining this week:

• Bitfarms increased operational hashrate to 5.3 EH/s 🧑‍🌾 

• Hut8 x USBTC merger update and expansion to healthcare 🤝 

• Miners transfer 174 MUSD to exchanges in two weeks 💵 

• Russia moves forward on Bitcoin mining 🇷🇺 

Block Green Proud to Partner with Crusoe Energy🏝️ 

Block Green is proud to announce a major milestone achieved in partnership with Crusoe. We have successfully facilitated the sale of 50 BTC of future revenue. The opportunity was filled in 26 minutes, demonstrating the strong demand on our platform.

"The biggest challenge with hashpower sales has been finding natural buyers," and Block Green has "prioritized finding holders of bitcoin who are looking to find a way to generate a yield," said Chase Lochmiller, CEO and co-founder of Crusoe.

We received some recognition in the ecosystem:

• Block Green was also mentioned in Bitcoin Magazine

Bitfarms Increased Hashrate to 5.3 EH/s 🧑‍🌾 

• Bitfarms Ltd., a global Bitcoin mining company, has increased its operational hashrate to 5.3 EH/s, representing a 6% increase from May 31, 2023.

• The company installed 2,982 MicroBT miners at its Rio Cuarto farm in Argentina, contributing an additional 290 PH/s to the hashrate.

• The installation of these miners increased the operating capacity at Rio Cuarto to 29 MW and the company-wide capacity to 207 MW.

• An additional 3,300 miners are on their way to Rio Cuarto and will be installed in July, further improving production and energy efficiency.

• Bitfarms expects these new installations, with their competitive pricing, high energy efficiency, and low-cost electricity, to generate a rapid return on investment, reduce operating costs per TH, and improve cash flow.

Hut 8 Advances Business Combination with USBTC - Increases Capacity to 7.5 EH/s 🤝 

• Hut 8 Mining Corp. provides an update on its proposed merger with USBTC. The combined company will be named "Hut 8 Corp." (New Hut) and will be a U.S.-domiciled entity, establishing it as a large-scale, publicly traded Bitcoin miner with a focus on economical mining and diversified revenue streams.

• New Hut has updated its capacity to 7.5 EH/s, an increase from the previously disclosed 7.02 EH/s, and will be located in mining facilities across Medicine Hat and Drumheller in Alberta; Niagara Falls, New York; Kearney, Nebraska; and Granbury and King Mountain, Texas.

• The increase in capacity is a result of energizing additional miners at USBTC's sites, including a 1.7 EH/s capacity at the King Mountain, Texas site owned by a joint venture in which USBTC has a 50% membership interest.

• Hut 8 CEO, Jaime Leverton, expresses confidence in completing the merger efficiently to form a stronger business supported by Bitcoin and fiat revenues generated from robust operations across North America.

• The completion of the Transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals, shareholder approval, court approval, and other customary closing conditions.

Hut8 Expands to HPCI for Healthcare 🥼 

• Hut 8 Mining has signed an agreement with Interior Health, a trusted health authority in southern British Columbia.

• The agreement entails delivering safe, secure, and reliable colocation services from its flagship Kelowna datacenter to support Interior Health's operations through 2028, to provide high-performance computing infrastructure.

• They have five datacenter in British Columbia and Ontario, offering colocation, public and private cloud, and managed services to various industries, including finance, gaming, technology, and AI.

• Interior Health is entering the partnership to obtain more reliable, secure, and scalable hosting options for optimal performance and uninterrupted operations in an increasingly interconnected world.

Bitcoin Miners Transfer 174 MUSD Worth of Coins to Exchanges in Two Weeks 💵 

• Bitcoin miners have transferred approximately 174 MUSD worth of coins to centralized exchanges since May 31, according to data from Glassnode.

• On June 3 alone, miners moved 2,606 BTC to exchanges, the highest single-day tally in over four years. The 14-day average of miner transfers to exchanges has reached 489.26 BTC, the highest since March 2021.

• The balance in wallets associated with miners has decreased by nearly 2,000 BTC in two weeks.

• While increased movement of coins from miners to exchanges is typically seen as bearish, the recent transfers amount to only 1.3% of Bitcoin's 24-hour trading volume and may not significantly impact its price.

• Increased miner transfers can also be interpreted as a sign of confidence in Bitcoin's price prospects, as miners sell when they believe the market can absorb the additional supply.

• Bitcoin's price remains stable, trading within a familiar range above the key support level of 25,200 USD.

Chainalysis Highlight Mining for Money Laundering 🧼 

• Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has identified a new money-laundering trend among ransomware hackers, where they use mining pools to replace "tainted" cryptocurrencies.

• Chainalysis located 372 exchange deposit wallets that received both mining profits and ransomware proceeds, totaling 158.3 MUSD since 2018.

• Ransomware-related wallets are increasingly sending funds to mining pools, indicating a popular money laundering strategy.

• Chainalysis provided an example of a deposit wallet on a popular crypto exchange that received significant amounts of crypto from ransomware incidents and mining pools.

• The firm found instances where the wallet receiving ransomware proceeds directly sent funds to the mining pool wallet, suggesting the same owner using mining as a means to launder criminal funds.

• Mining pools act similarly to mixers, obfuscating the origin of funds and creating the illusion that the funds are from mining rather than ransomware.

• The BitClub Network scam and North Korean hacking group APT43 have also employed this technique of using mining to replace stolen coins with "clean" ones.

Some News from Russia 🇷🇺 

Data 🌎️