Leading Japanese mining company GMO Internet has stopped mining Bitcoin Cash (BCH) once again, reports indicate.

According to company documents recently made public, the top bitcoin mining firm stopped mining bitcoin cash in July and previously in April.

The documents published by Trace Mayer of the Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast show that GMO mined 0 BCH last month, down from 62 coins in June and a high of 287 in February.

Why would GMO Internet switch all mining capacity to $BTC from $BCH? Only ~$37,867 for one hour 51% $BCH attack? Does DARI ratio account for block maturation times? Nov fork? What could possibly happen with this $9B testnet? Sure is fun to watch! 😂 💩 https://t.co/2P55FNxK23 pic.twitter.com/hZLx2hDUk6 — Trace Mayer (@TraceMayer) August 24, 2018

Irregular mining of BCH

Mining for most firms has largely been sporadic due to price fluctuations and declines within the industry. It has not been different for GMO, with the firm also mining 0 BCH in April before going on to mine 37 and 62 BCH over May and June respectively.

In December 2017, the firm mined 213 BCH. However, that dropped to just 25 coins in January before shooting up again in February to 287 BCH. In March, it was a disappointing 12 BCH.

In contrast, the company’s bitcoin (BTC) mining activities have largely been stable. The community has realized a steady increase in terms of revenue since December 2017. The number of bitcoins mined has increased from 21 in December to 124 BTC in February.

That number increased once more to 472 BTC in May and to 568 BTC in July. The latest revenue is in the region of $4 million if we take into account the current exchange rates for the leading cryptocurrency.

Even though the company did not mine any Bitcoin Cash in July, it is likely that it could still resume mining the crypto in coming months. Needless to say, Bitcoin Cash has been facing many difficulties and may even see a hard fork occur.

GMO Internet is a business and should, therefore, return to mining BCH if profitability increases in the near future.

If you are a miner or have followed crypto-talk about the topic, then you know that mining profitability has reduced significantly over the course of 2018.

Mining difficulty has gone up so much that the hash rate is measured in Peta hashes per second (PH/s) and not GH/s.

No incentive to increase hash power

GMO had indicated that it wanted to see its operations scale to about 3,000PH/s by December 2018. Although it could still come close to that figure, it is highly unlikely in current circumstances.

The unrelenting bearish market has squeezed crypto prices dry and mining profits have not fared any better. It has left many mining firms with no incentive to make new investments that would increase their hash power.

In fact, in its monthly report for July, the Tokyo-based company said that its hash rate remained the same for the two months of June and July.

The report shows that it did not bring in any new facilities, the first time the company had failed to bring in new equipment since January.

The firm’s hash rate, measured in PH/s, has increased tremendously from a low of 22 PH/s in December 2017 to a high of 384 PH/s in June and July 2018.

Taking on Bitmain?

The leading Bitcoin mining company is no doubt Chinese giant Bitmain. However, the controversial mining firm may have to contend with competition from GMO in coming months.

The Japanese company recently unveiled its B2 mining chip, the first bitcoin chip developed from scratch by a Japanese company. The device quickly hit the market, selling out within months.

Now the firm has its goals set on developing the B3, touted as capable of achieving hash rates of up to 33TH/s. It basically dwarfs the Bitmain’s top mining rig Antminer S9, capable of about 14TH/s.

Whether that is enough to take on the world’s leading Bitcoin mining company is a different story altogether. For now, GMO is fighting to carve its own space within the cutthroat crypto mining industry.