A subsidiary of Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings is partnering with German tech company Northern Data AG and Texas-based data centers operator Whinstone US Inc.
The partnership was revealed in a Feb. 13 announcement, detailing that Whinstone — a subsidiary of the Frankfurt-based Northern Bitcoin AG — will host SBI Crypto at its data center in Texas, as well as assist SBI Crypto in the development of blockchain-related projects.
SBI CEO Carson Smith said that the firm had been making plans with Whinstone and Northern Data for the Texas mining farm since early last year.
The announcement further noted that SBI Crypto may also invest in Northern Data equity.
SBI’s bullish outlook
Today’s announcement would appear to confirm previous reports that the firms were developing a major crypto mining operation as last month, SBI purportedly signed a deal with Whinstone to process cryptocurrency transactions at a new mining facility.
Last November, Northern Bitcoin entered a merger agreement with Whinstone to jointly build what will supposedly be the world’s largest mining farm. Northern Bitcoin AG’s new site will reportedly launch operations with an initial capacity of 300 megawatts, expected to hit 1 gigawatt by the close of 2020.
SBI has demonstrated a heightened interest in digital currencies over the past months, having implemented technologies by Ripple and blockchain consortium R3 as a major part of its strategy to enable a global standard for financial operations such as international payments and trade finance.
According to SBI’s financial report as of Sept. 30, 2019, the company saw major growth in its crypto-heavy venture capital arm, SBI VC Trade, in 2019 amid a general decline in SBI’s revenue. Alongside notable growth of crypto exchange-driven profits, SBI also recorded a significant increase in profits from SBI Crypto.