Crypto-friendly mobile payments company Square Inc. is set to make a $5 million investment in a solar-powered bitcoin mining facility for Blockstream Mining. The business decision further underlines chief executive Jack Dorsey’s undying support for blockchain.
Chief Information Officer for Blockstream Chris Cook announced the partnership last Saturday and outlined the next steps to be taken in establishing the open-sourced mining facility at one of their U.S. operations.
“Together, we plan to provide public transparency by sharing the project economics and knowledge we’ve gained from building a bitcoin mine powered by renewable energy,” said Cook in his announcement.
Cook added they hope to show how mining in conjunction with renewable energy “can help drive the clean energy transition.”
Built around transparency
Aside from having regular reports, the project will also feature a public performance dashboard where anyone can access real-time metrics of the mining facility, claiming to be built around transparency.
This comes in the midst of bitcoin mining industry becoming a subject of extreme media scrutiny after Tesla big boss Elon Musk decided to stop accepting bitcoin payments for the electric car maker because of “environmental concerns.”
Last month, the tech billionaire had high-level talks with the mining community resulting in the emergence of the Bitcoin Mining Council.
Boosting adoption for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies
Dorsey’s Square Inc. is engaged in a series of moves to ramp up efforts in boosting adoption for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.
Last Friday, it was reported that the company head is planning to develop a bitcoin hardware wallet geared towards bringing self custody and financial inclusion to the masses.
On a Twitter post, Dorsey said, “If we do it, we would build it entirely in the open, from software to hardware design, and in collaboration with the community,” emphasizing his desire to make the project as public as possible.
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