New cryptocurrency Bitcoin Minetrix is trending across crypto news outlets and social media after raising over $200k in the first stage of its ICO. 

Bitcoin Minetrix is a decentralized cloud mining platform, one that is being backed by experts and crypto whales. However, the cloud mining industry has had a checkered past, marked by scams and fraudulent activities. 

Naturally, investors are concerned if Bitcoin Minetrix is legit or just another scam or cash grab. In this article, we attempt to answer this question after diving into the project’s value proposition and its recent Coinsult audit. 

The next Bitcoin halving is expected to take place in April of 2024. The highly-anticipated event will reduce the amount of tokens earned by miners to half – from 6.25 BTC per block to 3.125 – leading to a deflationary supply that will likely trigger the next bull market. 

The Bitcoin mining industry becomes one of the most lucrative sectors of the crypto market during a bull run as miners’ BTC reserves and rewards surge in value. However, retail investors have been excluded from the profitability of the industry, largely due to the enormous cost of investment required to set up a competitive mining operation. 

Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism encourages competition between miners to ensure network safety and decentralization. However, to get ahead of this competition, wealthy corporations soon built extensive ASIC-based mining farms, thus owning infinitesimally more computational power than an ordinary Bitcoin buff with a CPU. 

The wealthy companies also combine their computational power to form mining pools – the two bigges pools Foundry and Antpool control nearly 50% of BTC’s global hash rate. 

On the other hand, a recent study highlighted that the average household electricity required by a solo miner to mine 1 BTC is over $46k. While mining is relatively cheaper in Asian countries, individual miners in western countries such as Italy would have to pay north of $200k to mine 1 BTC token. 

The Bitcoin Minetrix platform is attempting to challenge this monopoly and make mining rewards accessible to retail investors. The project has a straightforward motto – “Bitcoin Minetrix mines Bitcoin, so that you don’t have to”. 

Investors can use any Ethereum-compatible wallet like MetaMask to purchase $BTCMTX tokens, which can be staked using the Bitcoin Minetrix stake-to-earn dashboard.

 In exchange, investors will receive non-transferable mining credits, which can be burned to purchase mining power and eventually earn BTC rewards, all manageable from the dashboard. 

How Is Bitcoin Minetrix Different From Other Cloud Mining Platforms?

The concept of cloud mining started to gain traction a decade ago in 2013 when it became clear that ordinary investors could not compete with big-money mining companies. Cloud mining allowed such investors to rent a part of the computational power, without requiring any technical expertise. 

While successful initially, the industry soon became plagued by fraudsters who started setting up legitimate-looking websites with the promise of high returns – only to then disappear with client funds. 

Even legal cloud mining platforms forced customers to enter into long-term, cash-based contracts – in 2018, Genesis Mining forced clients to extend their contract by 5 years or lose all the services. 

Therefore, it is understandable that investors look at any new cloud mining project with a healthy dose of scepticism. Bitcoin Minetrix has attempted to quell such fears through its stake-to-mine mechanism – a tokenized approach to cloud mining for greater transparency.

This approach uses tradeable, investor-owned tokens, thus eliminating the need for cash-based contracts or any minimum deposit. More importantly, investors can choose to unstake and sell their tokens at any time, insulating them against any potential rug pull. 

According to the project whitepaper, this stake-to-mine mechanism offers retail investors a safe method to generate passive income. Even before the cloud mining platform is developed, they can purchase the token and stake them in the presale itself to earn staking rewards. 

Is Bitcoin Minetrix A Scam Or Legit?

Based upon the available information, Bitcoin Minetrix appears to have taken strong steps to establish itself as a legitimate cloud mining operation. 

The $BTCMTX token smart contract has also been recently audited by Coinsult – the audit revealed no vulnerability in the smart contract and established that the token cannot be illegitimately manipulated by the owner of the contract. 

The token’s staking utility – which is currently offering an APY of 5000% – also incentivizes investors to hold their tokens for longer periods, ensuring its price stability and network security after launch. 

Popular crypto YouTubers such as Michael Wrubel and Jacob Bury have claimed to be bullish on the Bitcoin Minetrix token. 

Meanwhile, the admin of the Crypto Whale Pumps group on Telegram with over 25k subscribers revealed that he recently invested in the project. 
BTCMTX has been highlighted on the Binance Feed, and Fintech sites such as Yahoo Finance.