Cloud mining provider, Genesis Mining, is expanding its mining operations with the launch of Ether Cloud Mining contracts. For the first time, customers of Genesis Mining will be able to mine for Ether, the fuel that powers the Ethereum network.

“Our customers asked and we listened. Due to our large-scale GPU mining activities we are glad to offer significant parts of our farms for Ether mining in the cloud. Users can therefore benefit from our economy of scale and our geothermal-powered and optimized GPU mining rigs in Iceland. We are bullish on Ethereum and look forward to giving our customers the chance to profit from this exciting innovation and also support the network,” Marco Streng, CEO of Genesis Mining, said in a statement.

To some, Ethereum is considered Bitcoin v2.0. It was developed by Vitalik Buterin in 2013 and has since gone on to raise more than $15 million to allow participants to create and execute smart contracts. A smart contract is a protocol that can execute the rules found in a contract without the need for human intervention.

“Our GPU mining farms are mining X11 and Ethereum. We are expanding them continuously, and since we are selling Ethereum in the cloud now, we are ramping up more Ethereum mining capacity,” Streng said in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine.

Genesis Mining already had a farm of GPU miners — which are inefficient at mining bitcoin — because it offers X11 mining. Since so many users were interested in Ethereum, the company chose to divert resources to the task of mining Ether. This move has no impact on its bitcoin mining farm.

“More miners on the network definitely helps increase the network security. It’s great to see operations organizations such as Genesis take an interest in supporting Ethereum,” said Vitalik Burterin in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine.

Contracts are for One Year

There is currently an effort underway at Ethereum to transition from proof of work to proof of stake, which grants power to those who hold coins. The more of a coin that someone holds, the more they are able to mine. Because of this, Genesis Mining will be offering only short-term contracts.

“It is a one-year mining plan which focuses on Ethereum and switches to X11 after Ethereum switches from PoW to PoS until the year [2016] is over,” Streng said. “It is an accelerated ROI [return on investment] compared to our lifetime contracts because of the low prices, zero fees (all contained upfront) and shorter timeframe.”

Genesis Mining will be offering three plans. Small-scale mining is 3MHs for $53.97, medium-scale mining is 50MHs for $899.50 and large-scale mining is 100MHs for $1,799.

Jacob Cohen Donnelly is a consultant and journalist in the bitcoin space. He runs a weekly newsletter about bitcoin called Crypto Brief.