Quebec new mining facility is operational

Former patent management company now focuses on ASIC mining

13 March 2018 527

Today, Marathon Patent Group, Inc. launched its brand new facility in Quebec, Canada. The facility is a fresh start for a company as it engages into Bitcoin mining game. Formerly, Marathon dealt with patents and commerce, it purchased and maintained intellectual properties of different organizations of all sizes from big corporations to universities and small startups.

Earlier, the company leased 2,5 sq km of space in Quebec specifically for establishing a data centre and cooperated with Bitmain on the matters of acquiring 1,400 units of Bitmain's Antminer S9 mining rigs. With this setup, 19Ph/s of ASIC mining capacity is expected to be carried out. Marathon is planning to add 2,800 more units to the facility. These machines are capable of mining both Bitcoin as well as other digital currencies like Bitcoin Cash, as the algorithm remains the same - SHA256. The company is clearly focused on mining cryptocurrencies with adding new crypto assets along the process and thus expanding its portfolio.

Judging by the stocks reaction - the stock (Nasdaq:MARA) is on the rise with 32% already gained, investors are pleased with the business shift. And it seems that traditional stock investors have found an elegant way to be exposed to the emerging market of digital assets.

Today’s announcement represents a milestone for the Company. I’d like to thank everyone that worked so hard to make this day a reality for our shareholders.

Merrick D. Okamoto

Interim Chief Executive Officer, Marathon

Mining SiaCoin Blockchain

Chinese Hackers Mined $800k Worth Siacoin Hiddenly

According to the police, hackers in collusion with serving companies hacked 100,000 computers in Internet cafes in 30 Chinese cities

19 June 2018 119

In China, 16 people were arrested who earned $ 800,000 on the illegal mining of Siacoin cryptocurrency in the Internet cafes in dozens of Chinese cities, CoinDesk reports.

According to the police of Chinese Ruian (Zhejiang Province), hackers in collusion with serving companies hacked 100,000 computers in Internet cafes in 30 Chinese cities . Their income was 5 million yuan ($ 800,000).

Hackers used a malicious program that used the computing resources of infected devices to extract Siacoin crypto currency. Malicious software was sold to employees of computer maintenance companies who could download it to a PC in an Internet cafe during scheduled checks.

Suspicions arose in July 2017, when employees of Internet cafes in Ruyan noticed that their computers began to work very slowly. The CPU performance dropped by 70% even after the reboot.

Around the same time, the price of Siacoin according to CoinMarketCap grew by 400% from $ 0.002 in May to more than $ 0.01 in July. Accounts for utility services of Internet cafe Ruiana during this period also significantly increased. This caused their owners to contact the police.

Most Internet cafes in Ruian were served by one company. Its executive director was arrested in August last year, and disclosed information about hackers.