20 December  2024 · Block Height 875561 · Bitcoin Price $97K

Welcome back to the Blockspace Newsletter!

For today’s roundup, we look into an overlooked story from this week: Halliburton is investing in an oil and gas bitcoin miner, 360 Energy, by way of its accelerator program. Plus, a note on El Salvador reneging on its Bitcoin maximalism, Foundation’s latest product, Solana’s surging transaction fees, and the overnight public miner sensation, Cango.

What caught our eye this week

Halliburton invests in oilfield miner 360 Energy via accelerator program 

Halliburton ($HAL), the second largest oilfield services business in the world, has invested in oilfield bitcoin mining company 360 Energy via its research and development arm, Blockspace has learned. 

In a December 18 press release, the company announced that its accelerator, Halliburton Labs, added 360 Energy to its “collaborative ecosystem.” Adding additional color to the news, 360 Energy CEO Chris Alfano told Blockspace that Halliburton Labs has made “an equity investment” into the company, adding that the relationship includes collaboration to accelerate expansion of 360 Energy’s off-grid mining offerings to oil and gas companies

“We will work with Halliburton teams across the operating model to ideate, strategize, develop and execute our In-Field Computing services with upstream oil and gas companies in the US and abroad,” Alfano told Blockspace. 

“Halliburton is the premier oil field services company and having their support as an investor signifies the market opportunity, and they will be of major assistance as we continue to grow.”

Based in Austin, Texas, 360 Energy operates 285 petahashes of bitcoin mining infrastructure across wellsites in Texas, utilizing otherwise stranded or flared natural gas to mine bitcoin.  With a market capitalization of $22.64 billion, Halliburton provides cementing, directional drilling, and hydraulic fracturing, among other services, to oil and gas companies.  According to Spears & Associates research, Halliburton is projected to earn $23 billion in revenue in 2024, which would make it the second largest oilfield service company behind Schlumberger.

“With its innovative In-Field Computing technology, 360 Energy captures flared or stranded gas and monetizes it through modular data centers. This provides a valuable solution for resource owners,” Halliburton’s press release reads. 

The partnership validates long-forecasted predictions from industry leaders and commentators that oil and gas companies will eventually partner with bitcoin miners to monetize stranded gas. Alfano said that he was not aware of other such relationships from other oil and gas service providers like Halliburton, but he added that large exploration and production gas companies have been selling on-site natural gas to bitcoin miners for years now.

He also said that leading publicly traded “upstream oil and gas companies are looking to deploy capital into mining infrastructure and hold bitcoin on their balance sheets.” Alfano believes this trend will accelerate in 2025, catalyzed by Trump’s taking office, continued institutional adoption through bitcoin ETFs, low natural gas prices, and emissions regulations on the oil and gas industry.

News

El Salvador scales back Bitcoin focus in favor of US dollar after IMF deal

The country of El Salvador will drop requirements for private businesses to accept Bitcoin in order to secure a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF. The terms of the loan require El Salvador to mandate the dollar as the sole currency for tax payments, while also forcing the government to phase out its Chivo wallet. Even so, El Salvador Bitcoin Office Director Stacy Herbert tweeted that the country would not stop buying bitcoin.

Foundation announces Passport Prime, a Bitcoin security platform

Foundation Devices announced a “first of its kind” personal security platform. The hardware-wallet-like device provides an open source toolbox that can handle FROST multi-sig, Miniscript integrations, Nostr signing, and dedicated Nostr apps. Some users condemned the product because it also supports non-Bitcoin use cases such as the privacy coin, Monero.

Solana generates more fees than Bitcoin and Ethereum combined

In the past 30 days, Solana generated $431M in fees, or 53% of all fees across all blockchains. The recent demand for Solana blockspace is primarily driven by the popularity of AI agents.

Chinese car maker Cango emerges as third largest public miner

As reported by Blockspace, Cango purchased 32 EH/s of actively-hashing Antminer ASICs (~4% of the Bitcoin network hashrate), making it the third largest public miner by self-mining hashrate. The company has another 18 EH/s of turnkey units under contract, putting it on track to produce 50 EH/s, which would put it on par with the industry’s largest public miner, MARA. 

Chart of the week

Cango Inc ($CANG) shares jumped 35% on the day that Blockspace published news about the company’s Bitcoin mining investment. Cango executives promptly dumped millions of dollars worth of shares following the surge.

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