Marathon Mining Pool will Comply will All US Regulation
Marathon Digital Holding Inc. recently announced plans to launch a BTC mining pool in North America. According to a statement by the company, the pool will comply with all US laws.
Details of the Announcement
The company stated that it would comply with US AML and KYC laws. Besides that, it would comply with the rules of the Office of Foreign Asset Control. Marathon said that it would ensure transactions that were processed via the mining pool would company will all legal requirements. To achieve this, the firm would utilize “Blockseer pool technology.” The technology is exclusively licensed by the DMG Blockchain and it will give the firm the ability to filter all transfers.
According to the announcement, the company will begin to redirect 100% of all its existing hash power to the new pool from May 1, 2021. The company projects that it will have deployed all of its 103,120 miners to the new mining pool by Q1 2022. By June 1, 2021, the firm has a goal of allowing hash power from other block reward mining firms based in the US.
Other Compliance Measures
As part of the compliance efforts, Marathon will not avail its platform to persons listed in the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN) of the Treasury Department. However, the company did not explain how the DMG Blockchain will identify and filter out individuals who have been blacklisted by the Treasury Department.
According to the CEO and Chairman of Marathon, Merrick Okamoto, a lack of regulatory assurances was holding back many institutional investors. The CEO noted that even with the recent surge in institutional investment, a lack of regulatory assurances was holding back more institutional money from entering the crypto space. For instance, the CEO noted that many institutional investors were afraid of investing in crypto since it may have been entangled with nefarious activities in the past.
Marathon, which is a NASDAQ-listed firm, aims to increase institutional adoption of crypto by being compliant with US laws. He noted that currently, around two-thirds of all the global mining power of BTC was concentrated in mining pools based in China. These pools offer little transparency or legal protection from interference by the authorities without due process.
Details of the Partnership
As part of the partnership, DMG will receive $500K worth of Marathon’s common shares. There will also be a monthly fee, which they will be paid in cash or BTC. According to the co-founder of DMG Blockchain, Dan Reitzik, the vision of Okamoto for the mining is what was needed by the crypto mining sector. Reitzik added that “We are excited to provide Marathon with our proprietary software tools and ongoing technical support to help realize this vision.”
