Bitcoin payment processor BitPay has announced an agreement with bitcoin mining hardware maker Bitmain to develop open-source ‘open-source blockchain security software’ for miners, mining pools and full node operators – who maintain and secure blockchain transactions.

Atlanta-based BitPay, arguably the world’s leading bitcoin payment processor and solutions provider for bitcoin payments, says it is pleased to count Bitmain among its customers. ‘Bitmain is one of the most successful providers of the hardware used to secure blockchain transactions’, says BitPay in its announcement. “In recent years, the company has played a major role in hardware innovation to support the exponential growth of Bitcoin – the world’s first and most successful blockchain.”

The ‘multi-million dollar development agreement’ will also be a ‘multi-year’ endeavor, the announcement added.

“At BitPay, we recognize that there is an untapped market of mining companies that require more advanced platforms for their businesses than are available today,” stated BitPay CEO Stephen Pair.

BitPay’s chief executive added:

We value having Bitmain as a customer, and we believe that miners are mining technology providers like Bitmain play a vital role in the security and ongoing success of the Bitcoin blockchain.

BitPay’s announcement of the agreement with Beijing-based Bitmain comes a week after Bitmain bitcoin miners were found to be vulnerable to a remote code execution from the company that could shut down a significant majority of the hardware’s hashrate.

“It’s true,” confirmed Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu, speaking to CCN.com, when specifically asked if the vulnerability “could allow Bitmain to shut down 70% of the hashrate.”

“We apologize for this bug and it has already been fixed in the new release,” Wu added, asking users to upgrade to a newly-released firmware that addressed the ‘bug’, also known as ‘Antbleed’ within the bitcoin community.

Following the deal with BitPay that will see the US-based bitcoin company develop open-source security software, Wu stated:

We believe that together we can make real improvements in how we secure blockchain transactions and grow the impact of blockchain technology in digital payments.

Featured image from BitPay/Medium.