MGT Capital Investments is clearly determined to become one of the key bitcoin miners at the very moment when the world awaits the mining reward halving.

The company is going to carry out a large mining operation in central Washington state using hydropower as a source of electricity, as this will allow to significantly reduce associated costs.

According to their estimations, using hydropower as a source of energy will allow the company to gain up to two petahash of bitcoin mining power as soon as 1 August. If it works out as planned and the business generates profit, the MGT may continue raising the capacity up to 10 petahash. Over the last few months, MGT has been carrying out operational tests to optimise the production software and accrue valuable experience.

Initially, John McAfee’s new company was engaged into blockchain security products. The new direction of business requires the whole new infrastructure to be built with dedicated ASIC hardware. MGT plans to employ mining computers for both purposes, thus raising the efficiency of production, and hopes to recover their initial investments sooner.

MGT may also profit from the growing demand for bitcoin transaction processing power. With the upcoming bitcoin halving, it is possible that some miners will halt their operations if the cryptocurrency does not show appropriate price growth. In this scenario, MGT would fill that gap.

Presently, MGT works on a takeover of two security technology companies: D-Vasive, a provider of anti-spy software, and Demonsaw, a provider of secure and anonymous file sharing platform. In the near future, the company will be renamed as “John McAfee Global Technologies”.

John McAfee, once the founder of the anti-virus software developer McAfee, was appointed as chairman and CEO of MGT Capital in May, which caused a short-time 1,000% surge in the price of the company’s stock. Prior to that, McAfee ran for the US Libertarian Party’s presidency.

Lyudmila Brus