Japanese online giant GMO Internet has announced its latest venture in the cryptocurrency space today – a Bitcoin mining business. GMO will operate a Bitcoin mining center in Northern Europe utilizing 7 nano-meter chips developed in collaboration with an alliance partner having semiconductor design technology.
Explaining the decision to investors, GMO’s management said: “We believe that cryptocurrencies will develop into ‘new universal currencies’ available for use by anyone from any country or region to freely exchange ‘value,’ creating a ‘new borderless economic zone.
Under such situation, it is important for cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoins, to secure its reliability as currency in order for them to further develop and spread. In this regard, Bitcoins can be regarded as a distributed system whose credibility is secured by mutual monitoring by network participants, as opposed to legal currencies which are a centralized system whose credibility is secured by the issuer. And management of a distributed system such as Bitcoins requires a mining process.
Accordingly, we have decided to launch Bitcoin mining business to support sound management of Bitcoins by leveraging our accumulated know-how on Internet Infrastructure business and Internet Finance business, with an aim to contribute to development of cryptocurrencies.”
The management also explains that this will supply its subsidiary GMO Coin, Inc., with mined cryptocurrencies, through which GMO Internet Group will contribute to an increase in the liquidity of the cryptocurrency market. GMO Coin is the group’s recently rebranded cryptocurrency trading and wallet arm.
(Photo: pixabay)
