Loka announces new Bitcoin mining pool for renewable energy miners

Loka, a decentralized Bitcoin mining pool, has partnered with Hashlabs to provide Bitcoin miners with access to instant liquidity through a new protocol.

The partnership with sustainable energy mining provider Hashlabs, which operates in Ethiopia, Finland, and Kazakhstan, enables Loka to launch a permissionless protocol through which miners can sell future mining rewards.

Eyes set on $10 billion BTC mining market

Bitcoin mining is currently a $10 billion industry, and Loka aims to gain momentum through a DeFi model that relies on renewable energy sources to reduce financial risks associated with price volatility. This approach would also bring more liquidity to the market, as miners own about 10% of the Bitcoin supply, or roughly $50 billion.

The protocol will offer tokenized, 110% overcollateralized contracts to provide access to instant liquidity in secondary markets. This means that miners dealing with declining mining revenues post-halving will be able to access and manage liquidity while protecting against market volatility.

The new renewable energy mining pool specifically targets institutional investors and offers BTC hashrate contracts at discounted rates and directly from renewable energy miners.

“We have seen tremendous interest from large investors looking for better access to Bitcoin, and with the hashrate and access to miners that Hashlabs provides, we are able to provide this without counterparty risk,” Andy Fajar Handika, founder of Loka Mining, said in a statement.

Hashlabs co-founder Alen Makhmetov believes the new protocol is an important step towards supporting sustainable BTC mining. It is also important to protect the financial health of miners, who Hashlabs will support with sustainable and low-cost energy solutions. The company controls about 500 petahashes, or 0.08%, of the total hashrate on the Bitcoin network.

New protocol for leveraging ckBTC

Loka’s protocol will offer a custody-free, trust-mined environment, with miners receiving payments and investors gaining liquidity through ckBTC.

Chain-key Bitcoin (ckBTC) is a token backed 1:1 by BTC, which is 100% held on the Bitcoin mainnet. Unlike traditional wrapped tokens, ckBTC does not rely on centralized bridges for conversion to BTC. Instead, ckBTC leverages the Internet Computer’s Chain Fusion to facilitate direct interaction with the Bitcoin network.

With Chain Fusion, Loka can use smart contracts to verify mining contributions and manage rewards.