Japanese Finance Companies and their Cryptocurrency Mining Bids
October 28, 2017In the month when bitcoin managed to surpass the price of $6000 per coin, it is no wonder that all eyes are on the trading activities. But, at the same time, the exciting news is coming from Japan, one of the key nations whose legislative changes allowed for a huge influx of confidence.
Now, the same confidence is what has been able to push and support the price growth no just in BTC, but other digital currencies as well. Japanese companies, however, are not limiting themselves to the trading and exchange domains of the business. Instead, there is a clear pattern of companies entering the domain of digital mining with their rigs and even complete mining facilities.
This news is important because it shows one of the biggest nations in the world in terms of financial services and the state of the economy really becoming involved in the back-end activities of the BTC blockchain. Here are the details of the latest news about this process and why it could further strengthen the BTC and the entire cryptomarket position.
SBI Holdings
SBI Holdings represents the Japan’s SBI Groups financial service division and it has revealed plans for the upcoming period in which it aims to move further into the blockchain and cryptocurrency domain. The form of this reveal came in their latest reports on finance, where SBI showed that it wanted to create a new financial blockchain-based ecosystem. This move is supposed to include research that would gather systematic knowledge related to the blockchain.
More interestingly, the company wants to attain cryptocurrency with the purpose of solving current problems in the global and regional markets. These will be attained through trading, general investment opportunities, but also through mining.
This means that SBI Holdings will most likely begin developing a mining operation for one or more digital currencies, aside of the bitcoin and bitcoin cash environments. While there are no precise details on the farm itself, there is a clear sign that the company is not planning on using current mines. The only potential option that does not include a new mine setup is a venture with some established mining pool which would allocate a part of their capacity to SBI. But, in that case, there is a certainty that the SBI will be attaining some kind of an in-house mining operation.
The Application
The SBI report stated that the company already had a very solid idea about what they want from this cryptocurrency venture. The company hopes to use the acquired knowledge to provide a series of services, including remittance, payments, and trade finance.
The group will also acquire cryptocurrencies, further develop services and products and also work on securing its market liquidity. Support for that will come from their own mining venture, which will produce bitcoin and bitcoin cash for now. Aside from that, the company will also invest heavily into the Ripple digital currency and payment verification method.
Because of all of the mentioned factors, the analysts are certain that the SBI is making a big push into the digital currency industry and its derivative fields. With this, the company’s aim of establishing a large-scale and the dominant cryptocurrency exchange platform seems to be moving closer to reality.
History of Digital Currency Interest
SBI is one of those rare companies which is not a newcomer in the digital currency field. This organization showed interest in expanding into the blockchain in 2016. That year, it invested into bitFlyer, a Japanese exchange, but it also focused on its own tests of blockchain tech.
The company also took the chance in 2016 to create a joint venture with the Ripple startup. Since then, the SBI has been testing a system used for money transfer based on the distributed ledger tech. The same system was put in place between South Korean Banks and those based in Japan.
All of this shows that the entrance of SBI into the blockchain domain is neither sudden nor clueless. In the past, the same type of approach stood the best chances of attaining success in a sustainable manner, regardless of the exact nature of the cryptocurrency venture.
The Japanese Mining Development
SBI is not the first or only Japanese company moving into the cryptocurrency domain, but what is really interesting is the fact that most of these are not shying away from mining ventures. Instead, veteran internet companies like GMO are building out-of-country mining facilities that represent strategic interests.
The amount of money invested in these mines means that the companies are including them in their long-term plans, possibility covering a decade or even more. Naturally, while millions use bitcoin and other digital currencies for things like online betting, eSports ventures, and other endeavors, many are still resisting the idea of moving into the mining business.
Today, for most even in the industry, large-scale mining is something that is immediately connected with Chinese ventures and not much else. But, as several Japanese companies realized, having an exchange that works on a top national level for a country like this, there has to be a constant access to digital assets. Mines are the way how this stable stream of currency can be attained.
This is why they are willing to invest in large-scale mining ventures that will be able to hash out a lot of coins in a predefined period. The same coins can then enter circulation on the exchanges run by the same companies.
In general, the rise in mining ventures is great news for the entire digital currency domain, being that mines are the actual physical element of these networks. They are also the key reason why notions of digital currencies being a bubble do not really hold water.
As more and more companies dare to follow the lead of their Japanese counterparts, the mining sector will continue to grow. Even in the case of a single digital currency losing its relevance, the same mines can easily switch over to another network they can mine. This way, it is hard to imagine these mines ending up being a business failure.