Huobi, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume to date, saw significant progress in its crypto mining business in 2019.

Huobi Pool, a cryptocurrency mining arm of Huobi, says its operating revenues surged 547% in 2019, reaching $320 million year-over-year from $53 million in 2018.

PoS staking continues to be the Huobi Pool’s most profitable business

Originally launched in March 2018, Huobi Pool released its first annual financial report on March 19, announcing the news for Huobi Group’s digital assets mining business and trading pool for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2019.

Alongside major growth in operating revenue, Huobi Pool recorded notable profits. According to the report, Huobi Pool’s operating profit jumped 218% from $2.5 million in 2018 to $6.3 million in 2019.

As outlined by the company, the two main triggers for Huobi Pool’s growth in 2019 were Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining. Having accounted for 35.62% of the total net income, PoS continues to be the Huobi Pool’s most profitable business segment so far, the firm noted. Huobi Pool also projected that PoS will continue to be a focus in 2020.

PoW consensus is also still contributing to total net income

As reported by Cointelegraph, PoS is a consensus blockchain algorithm that operates on the basis of the validator's stake in the network. PoS is opposed to PoW, which relies on physical miners instead of network validators.

Despite some blockchain projects like Ethereum trying to get rid of PoW consensus, the algorithm is apparently still profitable to date. According to Huobi Pool’s latest report, at least 23.5% of the firm's total net income in 2019 was contributed by PoW mining. Additionally, PoW mining became one of the fastest-growing business segments of 2019 for Huobi Pool, as its Bitcoin (BTC) hashrate reached a high of 6,578 PH/s.

In the report, Huobi Pool also highlighted its Huobi Pool Token (HPT) as a central part of the company’s business model. In contrast to Huobi’s native token Huobi Token (HT), Huobi Pool Token is specifically designed for the company’s mining arm, acting as a reward mechanism for hashrate contribution as well as a way for users to participate in Huobi Pool developments.

As of press time, both Huobi Pool Token and Huobi Token are seeing significant surges over the past 24 hours, up nearly 15% and 14%, respectively. The growth comes amid a major green trend on crypto markets, with Bitcoin getting back above $6,200 and jumping more than 18% over a 24-hour period as of press time, according to data from Coin360.