SBI, a subsidiary of Japan's SoftBank Group, opens Bitcoin mining pool business

On March 19, local time, SBI Crypto, a subsidiary of Japan's SoftBank Financial Group SBI, announced the opening of its Bitcoin mining pool business. Previously, SBI had established a strategic partnership with German mining listed company Northern Data AG, and the opening of the Bitcoin mining pool business is one of the results of the cooperation between the two.

As of the time of writing, BTC.com data shows that the Bitcoin mining pool is now ranked 12th in the world . SBI's mining pool can mine three cryptocurrencies: BTC, BCH and BSV. It is a multi-mining pool for the SHA256 algorithm.

In addition to Northern Data AG, SBI is also working with Whinstone US, a data center operator in Texas, U.S. The announcement released by SBI summarizes the company's current mining development process:

“SBI Crypto has been conducting independent mining of digital assets at overseas mining farms since August 2017 and continues to expand the scale of mining. The company will use the current mining capacity of about 1.1 EH/s to support the mining pool and provide stability.”

At the beginning of this year, SBI briefly opened the mining pool, but it was limited at the time. From March 19, new users can officially open an account in the mining pool. By April, users who do not have an account will also be able to register. SBI provides services in three languages: English, Mandarin and Japanese. SBI also said in the announcement that although many features of the mining pool are designed specifically for institutional clients, individual customers can still use the mining pool to mine.

SBI Holdings has already carried out a number of businesses in the crypto asset industry, such as providing Bitcoin lending services through its crypto investment subsidiary SBI VC Trade; the cryptocurrency exchange Taotao has also been acquired by SBI.

In December 2020, SBI announced a joint crypto-related project with Switzerland's leading stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange, and recently indicated that it will cooperate with foreign financial companies in more cryptocurrency-related ventures in the near future.

It is worth noting that SBI is also widely involved in Ripple's business and has been providing assistance after Ripple was sued in the United States. SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao previously stated that if Ripple is forced to leave the United States, it is very likely to move to Japan.

As the crypto industry develops, funds are gradually shifting to leading companies. Since Digital Currency Group (DCG), the world's largest crypto asset company, announced the establishment of its mining subsidiary Foundry, its mining pool computing power has now ranked among the top ten in the world.

With the increasingly fierce competition in the mining industry, the entry of SBI will inevitably bring greater changes to the global mining landscape.