Recently I got to talk with Marco Streng, the CEO of Genesis Mining in WDMS which was held in Tbilisi, the interview originally was published on www.coiniran.com, and the Bitmain and Bitkan were hosts of the event(they did a good job).
Meysam:
We are here with Marco Streng – the CEO of Genesis mining which is the biggest cloud-mining service provider. Marco, could you explain a little bit about the cloud mining, and how cloud mining is better or more profitable than mining on your own servers?
Marco:
Well, the industry has progressed a lot since the beginning, it was clear that there are large corporations are coming out who will have a competitive edge and dominate the mining market, so this was very clear to us and we wanted to be a part of that, but we also wanted to go along the vision and idea of the blockchain and to decentralize, so what our goal was from the beginning is to let everybody be able to participate in mining, and everybody should have equal chances, so that is not necessarily given because the large-scale operators have economic advantages over the home miners who have expensive electricity in their own setups, this is I think the necessity of cloud mining to give everyone the chance to participate in mining.
Meysam:
What I get is that, in a way you are helping to keep the cryptocurrencies decentralized as well
Marco:
yeah, that’s right, I mean in the end we are distributing the hash rate again, we are having the computers in our data centers and have the economy of scale and bringing all the expertize to run it in the most efficient way, but we are distributing it in the cloud and we have more than two million customers worldwide.
Meysam:
Is the cloud mining still profitable considering the massive increase in the difficulty of the network and the downtrend that we are facing in the market for the last eight or nine months?
Marco:
We are very proud of our technology, radiant
Meysam:
Yeah, that was my next question
Marco:
Well, we have put a lot of resource and development to it, and we have primarily done that, because we wanted to be bulletproof in even the most competitive scenario, it came to the result even the market is tough, we are able to run at a very favorable condition and with very high performance
Meysam:
Could you explain a little bit about the radiant technology, and go into detail to see how this radiant is different? how is it going to help the users? For example, If I had a contract with you three years ago, how I am going to benefit from this? Or even If I am a new user, how it is going to affect my contract?
Marco:
That’s a very good question, the key of mining is to stay most efficient and stay ahead of the curve, that primarily is determinant in three phases, you have infrastructure efficiency, you have the hardware efficiency and you have the electricity rates, so of course being the first and biggest player in the market, we have learned that very quickly and we have optimized everything along these lines, so we have really basically optimized to a maximum our whole industry structure, the data center itself, the cooling system
Meysam:
Everything is efficient now then.
Marco:
Yeah, we have optimized the hardware, and we combined it all in our new radiant technology.
Meysam:
Considering the exponential growth in cryptocurrency and blockchain space, and seeing everyone at least thinking about mining, do you think of expanding your business? and if the answer is yes, is it going to be the same countries that you are active right now? Or you are open to trying new countries as well, countries like Iran which I think has one the cheapest electricity price, and the location or space price is low comparing to other most countries?
Marco:
We are always in global skim, we have a very high responsibility towards our customers, so we need to be very careful in where we are expanding and what decisions we are making, so when we are going to a new country, not only the economic factors matter, but also political stability and openness of the country towards the technology, and if we are satisfied with all those points, an expansion in those areas is possible, I mean if it goes along with our principles and vision. we are constantly upgrading and expanding our infrastructure.
Meysam:
How do you see the future of cryptocurrencies, especially could mining?
Marco:
I think for the cryptocurrencies, there is no question anymore, they are here to stay, and they are delivering already interesting new features with regards of being the store of value and being a payment system and much more, and on the other side I think the whole blockchain technology has a big future and it opens a new technological dimension.
Meysam:
Are you trying to provide new services other than could mining in the future?
Marco:
Yeah, we do already, so if people are interested in learning about that, the Genesis mining has grown to genesis group, and the Genesis group is supporting the whole ecosystem with many more ventures, so you can find that we are also having a high performance computing company – Genesis could – and we are also running a fund where having other ventures that belong to the Genesis group.
Meysam:
You are also one of the 21 EOS blockchain producers as well, right?
Marco:
Yes, it is also something that we are seeing potential new ecosystem, so we want to be part of that.
Meysam:
Cryptocurrencies, the store of value or a stable money and a means of payment, in other words, which comes first?
Marco:
I think Bitcoin is primarily the store of value, but we are still at its infancies, I think we will see what would come out.
Meysam:
Do you think Bitcoin will stay the store of value considering the problems it has? Because it is very different from what it was before
Marco:
It depends, we are still at the beginning of the lightning network to come, and there is a lot of new technological advancements that will scale Bitcoin in an elegant way, but also we have Bitcoin cash, so we have a lot of options and I think it’s important that the playground keeps fair, and most superior technology will evolve.
Meysam:
And the last question, do you have any favorite cryptocurrency or project that you think is a unique one?
One of the most interesting ones I think is, of course, the Bitcoin, also Ethereum, Dash and privacy coins like Monero, but the whole space is very interesting and I am very overwhelmed to see that much innovations.
Meysam:
It was great talking to you, and thank you again, Marco, for your time.