Chinese mining pool Poolin, ranked second in the world by hash rate, has taken over NovaBlock pool in order to expand to the North American market.
The hashrate migration is due to be completed on February 8. NovaBlock's hashrate is just over 1 hash per second, while Poolin's miners generate 12.28 hash/s (based on a seven-day moving average). After the takeover, Poolin's total hash rate will reach 13.35 Eh/s. Despite the takeover, Poolin will remain second in the pool ranking - F2Pool is in first place with a hashrate of 15.8 Eh/s.
After the transfer of hashrate to Poolin, NovaBlock will continue to operate independently, stressed Alejandro De La Torre, vice president of Poolin China. The rest of NovaBlock's business will also remain unaffected.
De La Torre cited Poolin's desire to become an "international pool" as one of the main reasons for choosing NovaBlock, and NovaBlock's hash rate "helps in achieving that goal."
The Poolin vice president also noted that the pool plans to expand the functionality of its Poolin Wallet in the future. Another priority for the company is the development of the MARS project, which "connects centralized and decentralized funding in bitcoin mining."
Recall that the growth of the cryptocurrency market allowed bitcoin and ether miners to earn more than $1.89 billion in January. At the same time bitcoin miners received $1.09 billion, and the remaining $800 million came from ETH miners.