Resilience of Cryptocurrencies Expected in 2022 as Asia-Pacific Market Is Believed to Remain Dominant

FinancialNewsMedia.com News Commentary

PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cryptocurrency is known as virtual currency. It is a form of currency that exists digitally only and has no central issuing or regulating authority above. It uses blockchain technology to authenticate the transactions. Blockchain is a decentralized technology spread across many computers that manages and records transactions. Furthermore, it does not rely on banks to verify the transactions but is used as peer-to-peer system that enable users to send and receive payments from anywhere in the world. A report from Allied Market Research said: "Increase in need for operational efficiency and transparency in financial payment systems, rise in demand for remittances in developing countries, increase in data security, and improved market cap are the major factors that drive the growth of the global cryptocurrency market. Moreover, high implementation cost and lack of awareness of cryptocurrency among the people in developing nations hamper the cryptocurrency market growth. Furthermore, increase in demand for cryptocurrency among banks, and financial institutions and untapped potential on emerging economies are expected to provide lucrative opportunity for the market expansion during the forecast period.  The hardware segment acquired major cryptocurrency market share owing to rise in need for upgrading the performance of the software and to enhance the efficiency of financial payment tools. However, the software segment is expected to grow at the highest rate during the cryptocurrency market forecast period, as it facilitates to manage the massive volume of data being generated for meaningful insights and better-informed decisions."  Active Companies in the markets today include The OLB Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB), Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT), Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc.  (NASDAQ:MARA), CleanSpark Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSK), HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: HIVE) (TSXV: HIVE).

Allied Market Research concluded: "By region, the cryptocurrency market was dominated by Asia-Pacific in 2020, and is expected to retain its position during the forecast period. Owing to increase in number of Bitcoin exchange across Asia, which bring a certain healthy competition and maturity to the cryptocurrency industry. Chinese banks are hiring blockchain experts as the government pushes the use of the technology behind bitcoin to increase transparency and combat fraud in its financial sector. These factors drive growth of the cryptocurrency market in the region.  The cryptocurrency market is expected to witness promising growth in the coming years, owing to improved data transparency and independency across payments in banks, financial services, insurance, and various other business sectors. The use of crypto currency across banking industries provides various benefits such as sending and receiving payment transparently and storing customers detail information securely for next purpose."

The OLB Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB) BREAKING NEWS:  OLB GROUP Anticipates Start of Delivery of Additional 400 ANTMINER S19J PRO Cryptocurrency Machines This Month  - The OLB Group, Inc., a diversified eCommerce merchant services provider and Bitcoin mining enterprise, announced today that DMint, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OLB ("DMint"), expects to take delivery of the first of four hundred (400) additional Antminer S19j PRO Bitcoin mining machines this month.  The order was paid in advance in November, 2021.

DMint expects to be generating approximately $1 million in increased monthly revenue (assuming an average Bitcoin price of $42,000) once all 1,000 mining machines are deployed and operating. 

"Upon delivery, these 400 Antminers will bring our total cryptocurrency machine count to 1,000.  We expect to be periodically ordering additional machines on an ongoing basis as we finance the required capital investment through debt financing," said Ronny Yakov, Chairman and CEO of the OLB Group.

OLB provides merchants with omnicommerce services including leading-edge crypto commerce capabilities, eCommerce, back office operations, and payment acceptance online, in store, and on mobile devices. Merchants utilizing OLB's OmniSoft Business Management platform can transact with customers through digital wallets, cryptocurrency wallets, and traditional card-based payment. OLB expects to leverage DMint mining operations to power expanded crypto commerce services including financing, lending, and fundraising for small and medium sized businesses. 

Merchants interested in implementing crypto commerce or omnicommerce services can set up an OmniSoft account at https://cardaccept.com/#contact.    CONTINUED…  For more information about The OLB Group, please visit https://olb.com/ or http://olb.com/investors-data/.

Other recent developments in markets include:

Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) recently announced that it has acquired Ferrie Franzmann Industries, LLC (d/b/a ESS Metron) ("ESS Metron"). The total consideration payable in the transaction is valued at approximately $50 million, consisting of up to 715,413 shares of Riot common stock and $25 million in cash, funded with cash on the balance sheet.

ESS Metron is a leader with over sixty years of experience in designing and producing highly engineered electrical equipment solutions, many of which are mission-critical to successfully deploying Bitcoin mining operations at scale. Acquisition assists in ensuring Riot's timely miner installations by de-risking procurement of mission-critical infrastructure. Acquisition enhances Riot's competitive position across the electrical supply chain, as ESS Metron is also a leading supplier to numerous third-party clients. Transaction valued at approximately $50 million, $25 million payable in cash, and remainder in issuance of up to 715,413 shares of Riot's common stock.

Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc.  (NASDAQ:MARA), one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining companies in North America, recently published unaudited bitcoin ("BTC") production and miner installation updates for December 2021.

"2021 was a transformative year for Marathon as we increased our hash rate 1,790% and increased our bitcoin production 846% year-over-year to 3,197 self-mined BTC," said Fred Thiel, Marathon's CEO. "We finished the year with our most productive month to date, producing 484.5 bitcoin in December and 1,098 bitcoin in the fourth quarter. We expanded our agreement with Compute North and secured access to reliable hosting and renewable power behind the meter at industry low rates for over 100,000 of our previously purchased miners. And more recently, we placed a record order for BITMAIN'S newest machines, the S19 XP. As a result, we have increased our projected hash rate by 75% from our prior projection of 13.3 EH/s by the middle of 2022 to 23.3 EH/s by early 2023.

CleanSpark Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSK), a sustainable bitcoin mining and energy technology company, recently released its unaudited bitcoin production and operations update for the calendar year-to-date ending December 31, 2021.

Bitcoin Production & Operations Update (unaudited): December monthly production: 226; Calendar year-to-date production ending December 31: 1,528;Total BTC holdings as of December 31: 633; Total BTC converted for operations and growth in CY2021: 909; Currently deployed fleet of over 18,800 latest-generation bitcoin miners with a total hashrate of 1.9 EH/s.

The Company sold 414 bitcoin during December 2021 at an average of $49,791 per BTC to support growth and operations. As of the date of this release, daily BTC production has reached a high of 9.5.

HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: HIVE) (TSXV: HIVE) recently clarified its January 10, 2022 news release "HIVE Blockchain Presents December 2021 Production and Calendar Year 2021 Figures".  In HIVE's news release dated January 10, 2022, we understated certain aspects of our 2021 crypto production.

The news release stated that "in summary Total Bitcoin Equivalent mined was 3,222 based on BTC/ETH/ETC." This was incorrect due to a typo. The total Bitcoin Equivalent mined by HIVE in 2021 was 4,032. This takes into consideration the Bitcoin, ETH, and ETC mined by HIVE during calendar year 2021.

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