Expansion in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Operations Continues Despite Recent Lull in the Bitcoin Market

While Bitcoin Continues To Rise In Value Newer Generations Of Cryptocurrencies Are Gaining Traction As They Offer More Promise And Potential Beyond What Bitcoin Can Offer

Investments from corporate North America have been small, but appear to be growing in the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology development. Carl Data Solutions Inc. entered into a LOI to acquire cryptocurrency mining hardware from Connected Fintech Inc. back in December for the development of a first-of-its-kind IIoT blockchain technology for cryptocurrency mining hardware. While bitcoin continues to rise in value (though its rise has tempered over the last few weeks), newer generations of cryptocurrencies are gaining traction as they offer more promise and potential beyond what bitcoin can offer. That will be bitcoin’s most important legacy in geopolitics – kicking off the process of finding new platforms and applications for blockchain technology. Active companies today include: Block One Capital Inc.

Block One Capital Inc. (TSX-V: BLOK.V) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement with TG12 Ventures Inc. (“TG12”) to acquire up to 90%. Under the terms of the definitive agreement the Company has funded TG12 for US$2,910,000. Block One may provide additional funding as needed based on certain milestones over the next twelve (12) months.

TG12 is in the process of setting up a diversified digital currency mining facility with two thousand (2000) Bitmain S9 Antminers, with the first one thousand (1000) S9 Antminers to be operable in Q1-2018. The S9s are planned to operate at a co-location facility where the all-in cost of operating the miners, inclusive of electricity, rent, cooling, general rig maintenance and management, is estimated to be about US$0.10 per kilowatt hour.

Based on the Company’s current estimate, using a recent Bitcoin price of approximately US$13,900 (January 02, 2018) and the 2000 miners being fully operable, TG12’s estimated gross revenue per year is US$25,970,000.

“We are excited to be moving forward with our investment in TG12 and the potential ROI of the investment has moved favorably with the appreciation in bitcoin over the past several weeks. In addition to the TG12 investment we have been working towards building a strong pipeline of compelling opportunities in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space and look forward to sharing them in the coming weeks,” said Mr. David Berg, CEO and Director of Block One.

In other industry news and developments:

Fit Pay, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of NXT-ID, Inc. and Cascade Financial Technology Corp (Cascade FinTech) in mid to late December announced an agreement for the joint development of a platform that gives cryptocurrency holders the ability to use the value of their currency to make purchases at millions of retail locations worldwide. The new platform will enable devices with stored value exchanged from cryptocurrency to be used for traditional payment transactions. “As cryptocurrencies increase in value and distribution, the need to create new methods to monetize their value and enabling models for acceptance is the critical last mile,” said Michael Orlando, COO of NXT-ID and President of Fit Pay, Inc.

BTCS Inc. closed down on Tuesday after trading over 14.9 Million shares by the market close. BTCS recently announced the merger with Block Chain Global, which is a leading multi-national pure-play blockchain company that operates across four business segments, including transaction verification services, an institutional exchange platform, a blockchain start-up accelerator, and a blockchain technology consultancy.

Glance Technologies Inc. is proud to announce another milestone: since Glance launched the current version of its proprietary fraud prevention technology more than 1 year ago, its platform has experienced zero fraud across all of its live locations and all Glance Pay Anywhere remote payments. Glance intends to apply elements of its fraud prevention technology to its upcoming rewards and loyalty based cryptocurrency platform. “We firmly believe that both traditional and cryptocurrency payments will largely be done via mobile devices,” says Glance CEO Desmond Griffin, “Payment fraud is a significant problem for anyone accepting payments and we believe it is currently a barrier to the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Thus we believe that platforms which can reduce or eliminate fraud will be best positioned to succeed in the long run.”

Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. announced that the Company’s subsidiary, Global Blockchain Mining Corp., has received regulatory approval to complete the purchase of its previously announced acquisition of 6,666 Antminer S9s from Bitmain Technologies Limited, a privately-owned multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Beijing, China, for a total purchase price of US$20,000,000. The estimated delivery of these units is March 2018. Shidan Gouran, President of GBT stated, “We are extremely excited to move forward with our investment in this equipment, which is recognized as the pre-eminent bitcoin mining machine currently on the market. The Company feels that our acquisition of this mining equipment will provide a variety of options to continue to pursue our investment strategy within the sector. We are currently reviewing a number of opportunities that will allow us to monetize on our investment in a rapid manner.”