Blockstream, a leading provider of bitcoin and blockchain solutions, announced the opening of two large centers for cryptocurrency mining.

Today we're excited to reveal Blockstream Mining and Pool, providing enterprise-class mining equipment colocation in our US & Canada data centers, and the first-ever #BetterHash mining pool for a stronger, more decentralized #Bitcoin network. ?⛏️⛓️ https://t.co/sMVTTJNNep pic.twitter.com/EeQwuqyrB9

– Blockstream (@Blockstream) August 8, 2019

The first center will be located in Canada, the second in the USA. Their total capacity will be 300 megawatts.

According to Samson Mow, Blockstream Security Director, the centers will be able to produce 6 exams for bitcoin mining if they are used at full capacity with the latest ASIC equipment.

In addition to its own cryptocurrency mining, Blockstream will also provide its capacities to corporate clients, and in the future the company intends to begin servicing small miners.

Blockstream's first customers were the Fidelity Application Technology Center and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

In addition to cryptocurrency mining centers, Blockstream announced the launch of a mining pool to attract individual miners via the BetterHash protocol.

Blockstream noted that all these steps are aimed at increasing the decentralization of mining and strongly deny that the launch of mining centers by such a large-scale company can just lead to the opposite.

“I do not believe that Blockstream creates the risks of mining centralization. We are mining using only a small part of our capacity, and the rest is to customers. We also have plans to make hosting affordable for smaller miners, ” said Mow.

He also emphasized that using the BetterHash protocol in the Blockstream mining pool, all clients will be able to launch their own full nodes and create block templates. This means that "the pool cannot use its hashrate to censor transactions or false signals that it is ready to update the Bitcoin protocol, which has already happened in the past with SegWit2x."

Recall that last month Blockstream launched a new tool that allows atomic swaps between all assets supported by the Liquid sidechain.

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