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CEX.IO, one of the leading bitcoin exchanges and cloud mining service providers, has announced the temporary suspension of its cloud mining services. They can attribute this policy change to the sudden and drastic drop in bitcoin value in the past weeks. The suspension is set to begin at the next bitcoin mining difficulty increase and it is unclear how long the suspension will continue.
Jeffery Smilth, Chief Information Officer of CEX.IO, stated that this is a forced temporary measure, and
“…as soon as we get an opportunity to upgrade mining hardware, or come to more efficient terms with energy suppliers, cloud mining process will be automatically resumed.”
CEX.IO based their decision on falling bitcoin prices and increasing mining difficulty, making cloud mining less profitable. As stated in their Terms of Use, CEX.IO has the authority to suspend cloud mining in the event that maintenance costs exceed mining revenue:
“Mining with using User’s Gigahashes can be stopped by CEX.IO if the amount of the Maintenance Cost exceeds rewards for each mined block or if the mining is economically inexpedient.”
CEX.IO operates a large mining pool through Ghash.IO, once the most powerful in the network in therms of total hashrate. Currently, they opperate at 42 PH/s, or about 12% of the total network hashrate. Users who have purchased cloud based mining power will retain ownership during the suspension, and will automatically resume once the suspension has been lifted.
Although the cloud mining services will be suspended, CEX.IO will continue to operate as a bitcoin exchange platform, trading cryptocurrencies and fiat money.
