All things accept their humble beginnings; in 2010, the first Bitcoin (BTC) mining project was created in Prague, Czech republic, and was only called Bitcoin.cz. Soon afterward, founder Mark “Slush” Palatinus decided to move on to other ventures, such equally creating the globe’s first cryptocurrency hard wallet, Trezor. As a event, Braiins, a company doing embedded Linux development and enquiry, took over the mining pool and renamed it accordingly.

Fast forwards to now, Braiins (Slush Pool) has grown to become 1 of the biggest Bitcoin mining pools. There are now over 15,000 users in the space, with its full hash rate bookkeeping for 5% to eight% of that of the overall Bitcoin network. The company derives 100% of its income via BTC and charges a 2% to 2.5% commission from its mining firmware. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at Braiins, explained why crypto enthusiasts are withal choosing the world’s oldest mining pool after all these years, despite so many competitors available.

Ane of the first aspects discussed was why firmware is so critical in the process, to which Csepcsar gave the example of filigree balancing in Texas. He explained, “Yous turn on the mining machine when in that location’south a lot of electricity in the filigree, only you might take to turn them off in milliseconds when demand is loftier from households.”

“Now imagine a big farm of 60,000 machines; information technology’due south very hard to regulate them without the help of firmware, which solves the problem easily.”

But it’s not merely the technological aspect that’south alluring novel miners to the Braiins mining puddle. Information technology’s also nigh the ethos of the company. “Other mining pools want to support as many forks of Bitcoin and altcoins as possible because information technology’s just business for them” said Csepcsar. “Only we are non about that; during the Bitcoin Greenbacks (BCH) fork in 2017, nosotros decided to stay truthful to our central vision and not aggrandize our mining pool to BCH because it was just a fad.”


Kristian Csepcsar at Braiins headquarters
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Source: Kristian Csepcsar

And true to his words, at present Braiins does not mine whatsoever other digital currencies other than BTC. Contrary to pop belief, Braiins isn’t sitting on a huge pile of digital coin as you’d await. Csepcsar explains:

“Nobody expected Bitcoin to succeed that quickly. And then we were selling a lot more initially [when the price was very low] to fund operations. In addition, there was a hack of the cloud service early on that resulted in 3,000 BTC stolen. And then like, we’re not sitting on Satoshi level wealth.”

When asked about how the firm stays potent cryptocurrency conduct markets, when the price of digital currencies can ofttimes plunge lxx% to lxxx% in a very brusque menstruation of fourth dimension, Csepcsar responded:

“The good matter is that we started early. All the co-founders were already far enough in their careers to accept money from their previous job in big tech companies. We’re Bitcoiners, and we don’t believe in numbers going up forever. There are ever going to exist crashes. And so we prepare for that.”

In addition, Braiins is fiercely independent, having never accustomed coin from venture capitalists or external investors. Some crypto enthusiasts would argue in that location is a need for centralized institutions, such as security regulators, to pace in and regulate the volatility of digital currencies, so investors and businesses alike could plan for slow and steady (albeit controlled) growth. Only non Csepcsar, as he tells Cointelegraph:

“Imagine if we traded Bitcoin the same as the NASDAQ, eight hours a mean solar day, Monday to Friday instead of 24/7. Bitcoin is growing fast like an exponential technology, and we want it to remain that mode. Restrictions brand everything slower and less efficient.”