DURHAM, N.C., March 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MGT Capital Investments, Inc.(OTC: MGTI) today announced that its Bitcoin Mining Pool is scheduled to be fully available to the Bitcoin network early in the second quarter of 2017.Code development has been completed and security testing is underway.Upon launch, MGT plans to offer the world's most secure mining pool, branded MacPool, using the Company's proprietary cybersecurity utilities, and hosted exclusively on U.S.Bitcoin mining pools are a mechanism for Bitcoin mining nodes to combine resources, share hashing power and split rewards on a pro-rata basis.With Bitcoin valued at all-time highs, and consumer adoption reaching an inflection point, transaction numbers are expected to grow significantly.The growth in daily commerce using Bitcoin will increase the importance of aggregated mining pools to verify and report transactions to the Blockchain.John McAfee, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman of MGT stated, "Our mining pool is a natural outgrowth of our investment in Blockchain technology as a foundation for future cybersecurity products.

Large and respected Bitcoin mining operators will rapidly take over the enormous transaction processing requirements necessary for all companies to secure themselves in the near future.As a publicly-traded company, MGT leverages our unique opportunity to provide investors with a suitable proxy to participate in the profitable bitcoin mining space."ethereum investment trustAbout MGT Capital Investments, Inc.bitcoin price rise graphMGT Capital Investments, Inc.buy litecoin bank transfer(OTC: MGTI) is in the process of acquiring and developing a diverse portfolio of cybersecurity technologies.bitcoin bowl block partyWith industry pioneer John McAfee at its helm, MGT is positioned to address various cyber threats through advanced protection technologies for mobile and personal tech devices, as well as corporate networks.bitcoin tor onion

Also as part of its corporate efforts in secure technologies, MGT is growing its capacity in mining Bitcoin.Currently at 5.0 PH/s, the Company's facility in Washington state produces about 100 Bitcoins per month, ranking it as one of the largest U.S.-based Bitcoin miners.moon bitcoin redditFurther, MGT is in active discussions with financial partners to grow Bitcoin output materially.Lastly, MGT stockholders have voted to change the corporate name of MGT to "John McAfee Global Technologies, Inc."Following a dispute over ownership and permitted usage of the name McAfee, The Company and Intel have agreed to a mediation process to avoid unnecessary legal costs.Forward–looking StatementsThis press release contains forward–looking statements.The words or phrases "would be," "will allow," "intends to," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," or similar expressions are intended to identify "forward–looking statements."

All information set forth in this news release, except historical and factual information, represents forward–looking statements.This includes all statements about the Company's plans, beliefs, estimates and expectations.These statements are based on current estimates and projections, which involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.These risks and uncertainties include issues related to: rapidly changing technology and evolving standards in the industries in which the Company and its subsidiaries operate; the ability to obtain sufficient funding to continue operations, maintain adequate cash flow, profitably exploit new business, license and sign new agreements; the unpredictable nature of consumer preferences; and other factors set forth in the Company's most recently filed annual report and registration statement.Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward–looking statements, which reflect management's analysis only as of the date hereof.

The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward–looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof.Readers should carefully review the risks and uncertainties described in other documents that the Company files from time to time with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission. 469.236.9569 /news-releases/development-completed-on-mgt-bitcoin-mining-pool-300416204.html SOURCE MGT Capital Investments, Inc.Your request appears to be from an automated process.If this is incorrect, notify us by clicking here to be redirected.If “mining” sounds like a process which extracts value from Bitcoin, nothing could be further from the truth!Miners are the backbone of the Bitcoin network:Without miners, the network would collapse and lose all value.The role of miners is to secure the network and to process every Bitcoin transaction.Miners achieve this by solving a computational problem which allows them to chain together blocks of transactions (hence Bitcoin’s famous “blockchain”).For this service, miners are rewarded with newly-created Bitcoins and transaction fees.To understand mining, it’s first necessary to understand the Bitcoin blockchain.All Bitcoin transactions are recorded in the blockchain, in a linear, time-stamped series of bundled transactions known as blocks.The blockchain is essentially a public ledger, which is freely shared, continually updated and under no central control.Certain orthodox economists have criticized mining as wasteful.It must be kept in mind however that this electricity is expended on useful work:Enabling a monetary network worth billions (and potentially trillions) of dollars!Compared to the carbon emissions from just the cars of PayPal’s employees as they commute to work, Bitcoin’s environmental impact is negligible.As Bitcoin could easily replace PayPal, credit card companies, banks and the bureaucrats who regulate them all, it begs the question:Isn’t traditional finance a waste?Not just of electricity, but of money, time and human resources!If only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be created, why has the issuance of Bitcoin not accelerated with the rising power of mining hardware?Issuance is regulated by Difficulty, an algorithm which adjusts the difficulty of the Proof of Work problem in accordance with how quickly blocks are solved within a certain timeframe (roughly every 2 weeks or 2016 blocks).Difficulty rises and falls with deployed hashing power to keep the average time between blocks at around 10 minutes.Satoshi designed Bitcoin such that the block reward, which miners automatically receive for solving a block, is halved every 210,000 blocks (or roughly 4 years).As Bitcoin’s price has risen substantially (and is expected to keep rising over time) , mining remains a profitable endeavor despite the falling block reward… at least for those miners on the bleeding edge of mining hardware with access to low-cost electricity.To successfully attack the Bitcoin network by creating blocks with a falsified transaction record, a dishonest miner would require the majority of mining power so as to maintain the longest chain.This is known as a 51% attack and it allows an attacker to spend the same coins multiple times and to blockade the transactions of other users at will.To achieve it, an attacker needs to own mining hardware than all other honest miners.This imposes a high monetary cost on any such attack.At this stage of Bitcoin’s development, it’s likely that only major corporations or states would be able to meet this expense… although it’s unclear what net benefit, if any, such actors would gain from degrading or destroying Bitcoin.When Satoshi released Bitcoin, he intended it to be mined on computer CPUs.Enterprising coders soon discovered they could get more hashing power from graphic cards and wrote mining software to allow this.GPUs were surpassed in turn by ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits).Nowadays all serious Bitcoin mining is performed on ASICs, usually in thermally-regulated data-centres with access to low-cost electricity.Economies of scale have thus led to the concentration of mining power into fewer hands than originally intended.As with GPU and ASIC mining, Satoshi apparently failed to anticipate the emergence of mining pools.Pools are groups of cooperating miners who agree to share block rewards in proportion to their contributed mining power.This pie chart displays the current distribution of total mining power by pools:While pools are desirable to the average miner as they smooth out rewards and make them more predictable, they unfortunately concentrate power to the mining pool’s owner.Pools and specialized hardware has unfortunately led to a centralization trend in Bitcoin mining.Bitcoin developer Greg Maxwell has stated that, to Bitcoin’s likely detriment, a handful of entities control the vast majority of hashing power.It is also widely-known that at least 50% of mining hardware is located within China.However, it’s may be argued that it’s contrary to the long-term economic interests of any miner to attempt such an attack.The resultant fall in Bitcoin’s credibility would dramatically reduce its exchange rate, undermining the value of the miner’s hardware investment and their held coins.As the community could then decide to reject the dishonest chain and revert to the last honest block, a 51% attack probably offers a poor risk-reward ratio to miners.Bitcoin mining is certainly not perfect but possible improvements are always being suggested and considered.This simplified illustration is helpful to explanation:Let’s say the Green user wants to buy some goods from the Red user.

Green sends 1 bitcoin to Red.Green’s wallet announces a 1 bitcoin payment to Red’s wallet.This information, known as transaction (and sometimes abbreviated as “tx”) is broadcast to as many Full Nodes as connect with Green’s wallet – typically 8.A full node is a special, transaction-relaying wallet which maintains a current copy of the entire blockchain.Full Nodes then check Green’s spend against other pending transactions.If there are no conflicts (e.g.Green didn’t try to cheat by sending the exact same coins to Red and a third user), full nodes broadcast the transaction across the Bitcoin network.At this point, the transaction has not yet entered the Blockchain.Red would be taking a big risk by sending any goods to Green before the transaction is confirmed.So how do transactions get confirmed?This is where Miners enter the picture.Miners, like full nodes, maintain a complete copy of the blockchain and monitor the network for newly-announced transactions.Green’s transaction may in fact reach a miner directly, without being relayed through a full node.

In either case, a miner then performs work in an attempt to fit all new, valid transactions into the current block.Miners race each other to complete the work, which is to “package” the current block so that it’s acceptable to the rest of the network.Acceptable blocks include a solution to a Proof of Work computational problem, known as a hash.The more computing power a miner controls, the higher their hashrate and the greater their odds of solving the current block.But why do miners invest in expensive computing hardware and race each other to solve blocks?Because, as a reward for verifying and recording everyone’s transactions, miners receive a substantial Bitcoin reward for every solved block!And what is a hash?Well, try entering all the characters in the above paragraph, from “But” to “block!”into this hashing utility.If you pasted correctly – as a string hash with no spaces after the exclamation mark – the SHA-256 algorithm used in Bitcoin should produce:If the characters are altered even slightly, the result won’t match.

So, a hash is a way to verify any amount of data is accurate.To solve a block, miners modify non-transaction data in the current block such that their hash result begins with a certain number (according to the current Difficulty, covered below) of zeroes.If you manually modify the string until you get a 0… result, you’ll soon see why this is considered “Proof of Work!”The first miner to solve the block containing Green’s payment to Red announces the newly-solved block to the network.If other full nodes agree the block is valid, the new block is added to the blockchain and the entire process begins afresh.Once recorded in the blockchain, Green’s payment goes from pending to confirmed status.Red may now consider sending the goods to Green.However, the more new blocks are layered atop the one containing Green’s payment, the harder to reverse that transaction becomes.For significant sums of money, it’s recommended to wait for at least 6 confirmations.Given new blocks are produced on average every ten minutes; the wait shouldn’t take much longer than an hour.You may have heard that Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, so why is it advised to await several confirmations?

The answer is somewhat complex and requires a solid understanding of the above mining process:Let’s imagine two miners, A in China and B in Iceland, who solve the current block at roughly the same time.A’s block (A1) propagates through the internet from Beijing, reaching nodes in the East.B’s block (B1) is first to reach nodes in the West.There are now two competing versions of the blockchain!Which blockchain prevails?Quite simply, the longest valid chain becomes the official version of events.So, let’s say the next miner to solve a block adds it to B’s chain, creating B2.If B2 propagates across the entire network before A2 is found, then B’s chain is the clear winner.A loses his mining reward and fees, which only exist on the invalidated A-chain.Going back to the example of Green’s payment to Red, let’s say this transaction was included by A but rejected by B, who demands a higher fee than was included by Green.If B’s chain wins then Green’s transaction won’t appear in the B chain – it will be as if the funds never left Green’s wallet.Although such blockchain splits are rare, they’re a credible risk.

The more confirmations have passed, the safer a transaction is considered.In January of 2016, 4 Venezuelan Bitcoin miners were arrested.They were charged with stealing electricity.A spate of further arrests has followed, as the country’s socialist government tries to prevent citizens from converting state-subsidized electricity into useful, non-hyperinflating money.This sad situation raises the obvious question:The simple answer is “probably.” The more complex answer being “it depends on your location and circumstances…”For example, if you’re mining in a country where Bitcoin is prohibited by law, in a building with wiring that violates electrical code, and stealing electricity to do it… Well, obviously you’d be breaking a lot of laws at once.There are very few countries in the world where Bitcoin is expressly forbidden by law.In most countries, Bitcoin is either unregulated or permitted.You can check the legality of Bitcoin in your country on this page.Keep in mind that the information is incomplete (only about 60 countries are listed), possibly out of date, and certainly should not be considered legal advice.According to that list, here are the countries in which Bitcoin is banned:Before making any major investment into Bitcoin mining, you should double-check its current legal status within your country.

If no official announcement has been made on Bitcoin’s legal status within your country, try contacting your central bank or consulting a lawyer.Many American Bitcoin mining farms located themselves in Chelan County, Washington, to take advantage of the region’s cheap, hydroelectrically-generated power.The region’s power utility then announced a phased doubling of rates for energy-intensive customers and mentioning bitcoin miners specifically.US miners should be aware that while Bitcoin mining is entirely legal within the US, targeted rate hikes by power companies are apparently legal as well.Also worth noting is that the state of New York’s BitLicense, a raft of regulations covering the use of Bitcoin within the state, will add significiantly to compliance costs.Genesis Mining, one of the largest, reputable cloud mining companies, abandoned New York due to this regulatory burden.The state of Hawaii is working on similarly restrictive measures, which don’t explicitly forbid Bitcoin companies but instead tie them up in red tape.

Heavy-weight Bitcoin exchange, Coinbase, halted operations in the state as a result.By contrast, New Hampshire’s recently-passed House Bill 436 exempts cryptocurrency users from registering as money transmitters.Bitcoin mining is legal within the USA but state power costs and regulatory frameworks can vary significantly.Canada’s cold climate is well-suited to Bitcoin mining.Canadian law treats business-related Bitcoin transactions for goods and services as barter, whereas profits derived from Bitcoin may be liable for income or capital gains tax.In Iceland, it’s forbidden to trade kroner for Bitcoin but mining itself remains legal.The European Union has ruled that Bitcoin may be traded VAT-free within Europe although specific regulations vary by country.As for ensuring your wiring is up to code, you should certainly employ the services of a qualified electrician.Given the high power consumption and considerable heat generation of mining hardware, fire is a serious potential hazard!

If a fire breaks out and spreads to neighbouring properties, you could face severe legal repercussions if it can be shown to have occurred as a result of negligence.To manage such risks, always ensure:Don’t cut corners only to see your investment go up in smoke!The destruction of this unfortunate mining farm in Thailand serves to highlight the risks:If you intend to run a lot of ASICs in a residential or rural area, you should check with your electrical company that they’ll be able to supply you with sufficient power.Keep in mind that they monitor consumption and may send out an inspection team if they notice a sudden and dramatic increase in your electrical usage.Ensure that there’s nothing on-site to which such a team could object.A forest of question marks surrounds the issue of taxation of mined bitcoins.Generally, there’s nothing in the way of comparable legislation which could be applied to this process.Bitcoin is a prime example of technology outpacing regulation and it will likely be many years before regulation is formulated to govern Bitcoin mining.In fact, the situation is so murky that an American industry body, the Digital Asset Tax Policy Coalition, was recently established to lobby for clarity from the IRS.What can be taxed under many existing laws is the sale of any bitcoins you mine, assuming that the Bitcoin price has increased between the date of mining and sale.

If not, you could actually deduct the loss from your taxes.Depending on legislation in your country, any profitable sale may be viewed by your relevant tax agency as a taxable event.In countries where no Bitcoin-specific legislation has been passed, there is little cause for concern.However, in countries where Bitcoin is considered taxable, it’s best to keep accurate records of the date of sale and the Bitcoin price at that time.That said, it’s really tough to establish which of your bitcoins were in fact sold; those you mined 3 years ago or those you mined yesterday.If all your mined bitcoins are sent to a common address, it’s an open question as to how profit could be accurately calculated and reported.Unless you sell all your mined coins as soon as they come in, there’s no clear-cut method to determine which bitcoin were in fact sold.Changing your receiving address after each payout, whether manually or through some automated process, is one possible way to address this confusion.Receipt of bitcoin from your own miners or from a mining pool may also be considered taxable, where the law considers it all.