Squire is a Canadian investment company that is heavily focused on resource exploration and mining in the traditional sense. After witnessing the gargantuan rise in cryptocurrency popularity, it has decided to also include crypto mining in its portfolio. While many aspects between the two mining industries share similarities, the two mining processes are obviously worlds apart in execution. Squire has enlisted the help of Peter Kim to help develop and build the next generation of 10nm application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining chips that will then be fitted into crypto mining rigs. It will be the first time a company that is heavily invested in the traditional mining world has crossed over to the digital mining realm. It raised a whopping CAD$25.5 million in private equity funding to help kick-start this ambitious project.
The Mysterious Peter Kim
The identity of Peter Kim is largely kept under wraps, Squire briefly mentions his experience, but he appears to be a bit of a mystery as an individual. There are a handful of Peter Kim’s in the crypto world, most notably Peter Jihoon Kim that is the head of engineering at Coinbase and creator of Cipher Browser, but it is most likely not this Peter. A press release on the Squire website simply describes Peter Kim as a “highly qualified executive with extensive experience in chip design and system architecture, developing IT solutions and support, vendor sourcing and project management” – could we be looking at the next Satoshi Nakamoto?
New Players in the Crypto Mining Industry
Despite the falling price of Bitcoin and the rising cost of electricity, crypto mining firms are struggling to stay afloat, with hundreds of hobbyist miners temporarily shutting down their rigs to reduce costs. However, a handful of companies don’t seem to think this is an issue, as they open shop and scale up operations.
Last week the UK got its first publicly listed crypto mining firm – Argo Mining. With Squire turning its attention to the crypto mining world, it opens up new avenues for traditional investors and the crypto community as a whole. The crypto community relies upon a diverse pool of miners to ensure a certain degree of neutrality remains in the mining world and that one company doesn’t just produce most of the hash rate. This would mean mining is then centralized and history can be effectively be re-written by the person that owns the hash rate. With this new introduction of crypto mining firms, it further dilutes the network hash rate, meaning companies like Bitmain will lose their grip on the majority of the network hash rate.
Next Generation of ASICs
Current off the shelf ASICs from the likes of Bitmain isn’t going to cut it for Squire. By enlisting the help of the mysterious Peter Kim to build custom next-gen 10nm ASICs, they can then avoid the situation where mining giants pass on last season’s tech to consumers and keep the best for themselves. This practice will ensure it has the very best mining equipment and becomes a leading name in Bitcoin mining. While the new secret generation of 10nm ASICs could allow Squire to wield an untold amount of power and produce a hefty amount of hashes per second.
New players entering the crypto mining world is only a good thing for the crypto community. More miners mean more decentralization, and this means a more secure network. In order to succeed in the crypto mining world, you need two things – top equipment and cheap power. Squire is based in Canada. which is known to have some of the most expensive rates of electricity for crypto miners. It hasn’t yet said where its mining data centers will be located, but we can be certain that it will be looking for somewhere with an abundance of renewable energy, such as hydroelectric power.
