Bitcoin Mining Firm Navier Starts Tokenized Hashrate Marketplace for ‘Qualified’ Customers

Bitcoin mining hosting and services firm Navier has debuted a marketplace for buying and selling tokenized hashrate, which is open for “qualified investors.”

“What Reactor.xyz [the name of the platform] delivers is ownership of an asset, ownership of a certain amount of hashrate that will mine for a certain amount of time,” CEO Josh Metnick said.

So far, there are two options available to investors looking to mine without setting up their own facilities. They can use companies like Compass Mining, where they buy a physical machine and hosting services for it to operate, or work with a cloud mining firm like Bitdeer or BitFuFu, which owns and operates machines and then rents out hashrate for a specific period of time.

Navier’s solution “has similarities” to cloud mining, according to founder Metnick, but gives the user more control over their hash power, such as choosing what mining pools to use.

ERC-721 tokens will be used to represent the ownership of the hash power, such that they can be easily traded among users. Also, the hashrate sold comes from industrial-scale bitcoin miners, as opposed to Navier’s own sites like cloud mining firms.

According to Navier, the existing two models available come with a lot of uncertainty. In the Compass Mining model, you have to trust another firm of delivering the right machines at the right time, without any damage, and then sign an agreement for hosting, and hope there are no “gotchas” in the contract, Metnick said. Cloud mining firms essentially offer synthetic hashrate, which users have little control over.

“After years of helping manage colocation clients and facilities, the top customer service support requests are various forms of ‘why is my machine down?’ or ‘why is my (x)Th/s machine operating at (<x)Th/s?’ Mining rigs and colocation facilities are just not very stable. Then add curtailment to the mix, and it gets even worse,” Metnick said.

Navier tries to mitigate these issues using tokenization, as well as technology to ensure redundancy across sites for any given amount of hash power. Through these methods, they target 100% uptime.

“At the end of the day, this is the most important feature — customers want to get what they paid for,” the CEO said.

BitFuFu and Bitdeer offer compensation for such hashrate fluctuations.

CORRECTION (Mar. 22, 14:00 UTC): Corrects headline and story to clarify that the marketplace is open for “qualified” investors.