Crypto firm Luxor starts marketplace for Bitcoin mining machines

CRYPTO-MINING services firm Luxor Technologies said on Wednesday (Feb 1) it has launched a trading platform for Bitcoin mining machines.

The first “request-for-quote” marketplace will allow users to create requests and negotiate on price directly, attempting to improve both transparency and liquidity in the secondary market.

The platform comes amid a glut of equipment being sold by troubled miners and crypto lenders seeing a surge in machine-backed loan defaults. The market for mining rigs – specialised computers that earn tokens by validating blockchain transactional data – tends to be volatile as the value of machines are highly correlated with Bitcoin prices.

“We built Luxor RFQ because we saw the need for a unified marketplace,” Luxor operations manager Lauren Lin said in a statement. “Before, buyers and sellers relied on a patchwork of venues to buy and sell mining hardware in a fragmented and opaque market. Now, they can observe offers, listings, and settlement prices all in one place.”

With the collapse of crypto prices last year, the value of some mining machines has plummeted by as much as 80 per cent from a high in 2021. Some are finding opportunities with the slide, however. Crypto firms, including Chinese billionaire Jihan Wu’s crypto-miner Bitdeer, plan to raise hundreds of millions of US dollars to invest in Bitcoin mining hardware. Bankrupt BlockFi is also approved to set up an auction for its mining business. BLOOMBERG