Miner Weekly: “AI Oracle” for Bitcoin Mining Pumps Stock by 200%
Claims of 30% boost in block-winning odds lack supporting evidence
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This article first appeared in Miner Weekly, BlocksBridge Consulting’s weekly newsletter curating the latest news in bitcoin mining and data analysis from TheMinerMag. Subscribe to receive in your inbox once a week.
Every bull market in crypto and bitcoin mining brings its share of eyebrow-raising developments. In 2021, there was the NuMiner hardware, which—despite numerous red flags—touted a $1.7 billion preorder from a public miner.
This cycle’s attention-grabber comes from a London-listed company, Quantum Blockchain (QBT), which claims to have developed an AI Oracle capable of enhancing bitcoin mining success rates by approximately 30%. According to QBT, the technology has already undergone live testing on the Bitcoin network.
Predicting Bitcoin’s SHA-256 Hash Output???
In its press release last Friday, QBT described the AI Oracle as follows:
“The AI Oracle achieves these material [30%] advantages through being able to predict the likelihood of an input to SHA-256 to produce a winning hash above a certain level of difficulty.”
If this claim sounds intriguing—or dubious🤨—you’re not alone. The Financial Times (FT) critically analyzed QBT’s announcement on Monday, highlighting gaps in the company’s explanations and a lack of clear evidence to support its bold claims.
The FT raised key questions about QBT’s claims, noting:
QBT’s test was conducted on an FPGA miner, with the company only assuming the technology could work for ASIC miners.
The FPGA miner test was performed within a mining pool, making it difficult to determine what exactly was being measured or achieved.
Despite the skepticism, QBT’s stock price surged following the announcement. The share price jumped from 0.72 GBX to 2.15 GBX last Friday and climbed further to 2.29 GBX on Tuesday, before retreating to 1.60 GBX by Wednesday.
On Thursday, QBT announced that it raised £2 million in a private placement to fund further R&D by issuing new shares at 1.15 GBX per share (£1 = 100 GBX). QBT’s share plunged by 22% following the news to 1.21 GBX.
Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time the FT has scrutinized QBT. A previous report last year detailed the company’s transformation under founder Francesco Gardin, from a dot-com incubator in the early 2000s to ventures in hospitality, before pivoting to bitcoin mining. Referencing the ASICBoost saga, the FT report highlighted the paradox inherent in QBT’s claims, writing:
“One conclusion to take from the AsicBoost saga is that, if any party finds a better way to mine crypto, the most profitable strategy is to mine lots of crypto. Publicising the method will only cause a fight about what the community considers fair and might prompt a redesign of the protocol.”
Adding to the intrigue, Gardin said last Friday that QBT would hold private meetings in the U.S. this week to demonstrate the AI Oracle to select mining parties.
On a Separate Note: TSMC and Bitcoin Mining Hardware
In other bitcoin mining hardware news, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is reportedly beginning to produce chips for Bitdeer in its Arizona facility in the U.S. this quarter, according to Tim Culpan, a former Bloomberg columnist based in Taiwan focusing on the semiconductor industry.
It is previously known that Bitdeer works with TSMC for chip fabrication but this is the first time someone reported that the production would be in the U.S. instead of Taiwan, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
Culpan’s report implied potential ties between Bitdeer and Bitmain, although the two companies have been more like adversaries than anything since a 2021 settlement that ended a protracted internal power struggle. He also previously noted that TSMC was originally expected to mass-produce bitcoin ASICs for Bitmain in Arizona, but that plan fell through.
More recently, Sophgo—an AI company owned by Bitmain’s chairman Micree Zhan—was added to the U.S. Entity List following tensions surrounding Huawei.
Hardware and Infrastructure News
NYDIG Set to Expand Bitcoin Hashrate with Coinmint Investment – TheMinerMag
Austin Data Center Linked to Bitcoin Mining After Importing Cooling Containers – TheMinerMag
Riot Halts 600MW Bitcoin Mining Expansion for AI and HPC – TheMinerMag
Phoenix Plans Bitcoin Mining Expansion in Ethiopia with 80 MW – TheMinerMag
Corporate News
MARA Pool embedded a portrait of President Trump in a BTC block to honor his upcoming inauguration – Link
Bitcoin Miner Argo’s CEO Thomas Chippas Steps Down – TheMinerMag
Canaan Reports 4.01 EH/s Bitcoin Hashrate in Ethiopia – TheMinerMag
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