CloudHashing: Minting BitCoins in the Cloud
Bitcoin is no stranger to the news cycle. The crypto-currency has risen from being a fringe financial instrument into being talked about at the highest levels of government. Bitcoin hit the mainstream due to its ease of use, lack of transaction fees and anonymity. If you are unfamiliar with Bitcoin, the process of making a Bitcoin can be explained quite simply. A cryptographic code is generated that corresponds with a value. Computational power is used to create this code using an algorithm and the more coins that become available, the harder the code is to create which requires more and more computational power to effectively “Mint” the Bitcoin. This process caught the eyes of cloud engineers and they collectively started to ask, “Why can’t we mint Bitcoins in the cloud?”
CloudHashing.com is the big player in this cloud niche. In an article published by the International Business Times, the Washington state based operation recently allowed local TV news reporters inside the datacenter to see the CloudHashing.com Bitcoin rigs at work. The report stated that the datacenter generates around 2.5 petahashes per second. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $625 per Bitcoin. If you work out the math, this means that CloudHashing.com mints about $20M in Bitcoins each month. This last sentence should contain an asterisk at the end because it should be noted that the Bitcoin price is highly volatile, sometimes swinging up down hundreds of dollars at a time.
How do people make money from CloudHashing.com? The website sells “Mining contracts” that reserves a certain amount of computational power for your own Bitcoin mining endeavors. The rig is pre-setup and as soon as you buy into the program, you can begin reaping the rewards of mining your own Bitcoins. Since Bitcoins are generated on the fly, you can cash out your Bitcoins whenever you see fit. This is advantageous if you foresee a big spike in the Bitcoin economy. CloudHashing.com has more information about the different mining contracts that they offer their clientele.
