Though a reason was not given, the firm indicated it would cease operations on July 31.
“Until then, we expect the pool to continue operating under normal conditions, and customers may continue mining and receiving payouts as usual,” the firm wrote. “Our goal is to continue providing stable and reliable mining pool operations through the planned closure date.”
Bitcoin mining pools allow smaller players to lump together their resources and computational power, or hash rate, to compete to win Bitcoin blocks and therefore BTC rewards. When the pool finds a block, the rewards are then distributed proportionally to the resources provided by individuals in the group.
Now, though, SBI’s mining pool users will need to look elsewhere, something the firm says it’s aimed to assist customers by conducting “business and technical discussions” with other mining pool operators, like Braiins and Luxor.
“Some operators may offer special programs or preferential conditions for clients transitioning from SBI Crypto,” it wrote.
Other major miners have announced multi-billion-dollar AI compute deals with major tech firms, even as they continue to maintain Bitcoin operations. The Bitcoin mining business has become increasingly challenging for companies amid Bitcoin's falling price, with the leading cryptocurrency now down more than 50% from its all-time high price of $126,080 set last October.
