What caught our eye this week

Bitcoin infrastructure and financial services firm NYDIG has acquired bitcoin mining company Consensus Technology Group CTG, according to sources familiar with the matter and Linkedin posts Blockspace reviewed.

Base on LinkedIn postings that Blockspace observed, the deal likely closed in October. CTG Co-Founder and CTO David Westrop’s LinkedIn indicates that he began a new operations role for NYDIG last month, as does other CTG co-founder Joshua Zappala’s LinkedIn, which now shows him employed at NYDIG under corporate development and strategy. NYDIG declined to comment on Blockspace’s inquiry on the matter.

According to its website, CTG provides hosting services and operates bitcoin mines in North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Missouri with a collective capacity of 120 MW and 5 EH/s under management. 

NYDIG has a history of gobbling up assets and companies across the spectrum of financial services, software, and infrastructure. The company has acquired Arctos (undisclosed, 2021), Bottlepay ($300m, 2021), and took control of Greenidge’s 44MW following their ASIC loan default event in 2023.

2024 has been a busy year for NYDIG as it expands its influence in the bitcoin mining sector. Toward the end of October, the company poured an investment into Coinmint’s Massena, NY facility. The CTG acquisition could be a bellwether for more M&A activity in the bitcoin mining industry as tight margins could point miners to look at companies like NYDIG to bankroll their exit.

Bitcoin News

Runes creator Casey Rodarmor gives away his first Ordinal…. In Minecraft!

Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor gave away his first ever inscription on Saturday to a random Minecraft player after they solved a puzzle that led to a specific location in a popular Minecraft server. The asset, from Casey’s “Dia de Pixales” collection might be worth as much as 5 BTC (~$382,000).

Covenants are possible on Bitcoin using hash collisions

Another day, another covenant proposal. Apparently, you can emulate covenants on Bitcoin using collisions in 160-bit hash functions (SHA1 and RIPEMD) to create a bridge between Bitcoin’s two scripting types. If you didn’t understand that it’s okay – basically with enough computers running you can do a bunch of math to make covenants work on Bitcoin (kind of like Bitcoin mining itself!).

SatRepublic raises $2.75 million

SatRepublic raises from “Bitcoin 2.0” investors for the first native iOS app with full runes and rare sats buying, selling, minting, analytics, market analysis. The startup highlights that this raise is unconventional because the team did not pursue funding from traditional Web 3.0 firms.

Chart of the week

ETH/BTC ratio hit all-time lows of 0.0347ETH for 1 BTC this week, the lowest we’ve seen since March 2021.