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

• Pennsylvania lawmaker drops crypto mining ban from bill 📜 

• Marathon implements a diversification strategy for their Bitcoin custody 🔑 

• Stronghold September update and data center optimization 📈 

• Hive becomes a NVIDIA Cloud Service Provider 🤖 

Pennsylvania Lawmaker Drops Crypto Mining Ban from Energy Conservation Bill to Boost Legislative Progress 📜 

• A Pennsylvania lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Greg Vitali, initially proposed a two-year moratorium on crypto mining permits through the Cryptocurrency Energy Conservation Act.

• He aimed to address the environmental concerns associated with mining. However, in a strategic move, Vitali removed the moratorium from his bill to increase its chances of passing.

• The amended bill was presented to the state House of Representatives Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, which Vitali chairs.

• The committee accepted both the bill and the amendment, with the bill passing by a narrow margin.

• Instead of the moratorium, the bill now focuses on reporting requirements for specific crypto mining facilities and mandates an impact study by the Department of Environmental Protection.

• This change reflects the challenges of implementing strong environmental policies in the legislative process.

• Lawmakers across the United States are increasingly concerned about the energy consumption and environmental impact of crypto mining, with some states, like New York, imposing moratoriums on new mining facilities.

Marathon Digital Holdings Expands Bitcoin Custody with Enterprise-Grade Custodian to Support Diversification Strategy 🔑 

• Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (MARA) has announced the addition of a new, enterprise-grade custodian for its Bitcoin holdings.

• This move is part of Marathon's strategy to diversify its Bitcoin treasury using multiple custodians.

• As of September 30, 2023, Marathon had accumulated 13,726 bitcoin, and in September 2023, the company produced 1,242 bitcoin, constituting 4.3% of the total rewards available to Bitcoin miners that month.

• Historically, Marathon had entrusted all of its Bitcoin holdings to a single custodian. However, the company aims to enhance its treasury management by introducing a second enterprise-grade custodian.

• Salman Khan, Marathon's CFO, highlighted the importance of diversification in the company's strategy. With their growing Bitcoin holdings and production rate, they see this as an ideal time to spread their Bitcoin custody across multiple custodians.

• The new custodian is experienced in providing digital asset solutions and is expected to complement Marathon's current custodial solutions.

Stronghold September Update and Partnership for Data Center Optimization 📈 

• Stronghold reported that they mined 196 bitcoin in September 2023 and generated around $0.2 million in energy revenue, equivalent to about seven additional bitcoin based on the month's average price.

• Despite the challenges, they achieved an all-time-high hash rate of approximately 3.5 EH/s, marking a 15% increase from August 2023.

• Stronghold expects Bitcoin production for October 2023 to be in the range of 205 to 215 bitcoin, excluding electricity sales. The company also anticipates over 20% average hash rate growth in Q4 2023 compared to Q3 2023.

• Stronghold has entered into a Managed Services Agreement (MSA) with Frontier Outpost 8, LLC to optimize their data centers and enhance Bitcoin production.

• The MSA includes equity compensation for Frontier, signaling confidence in Stronghold's business model as they approach the Bitcoin halving in April 2024.

HIVE Digital Technologies Partners with NVIDIA and Launches GPU Grant Program for Open-Source AI Developers 🤖 

• HIVE has become an NVIDIA Cloud Service Provider (CSP) partner and announced a GPU grant program for AI developers. The program offers 10,000 A40 hours on a Supermicro server with 10x NVIDIA A40-48GB GPUs, valued at approximately $10,000.

• HIVE acknowledges the significance of the open-source AI movement and aims to support it by encouraging AI developers to submit their projects for consideration.

• Aydin Kilic, HIVE's President and CEO, highlighted the importance of advancing open-source AI, citing the success of Llama 2 by Meta and HIVE's involvement in the research.

• HIVE's compliance as an NVIDIA Cloud Service Provider enables them to provide on-demand GPU HPC infrastructure services, catering to AI compute requirements and converting their GPU assets into a customer rental service.

• The GPU grant contest will enable HIVE to offer compute resources directly to end-users, aligning with their commitment to fostering open-source AI initiatives.