Bitcoin Forum

Investing.com (https://br.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/saudi-aramco-3o-maior-empresa-do-mundo-pretende-comecar-a-minerar-bitcoin-899556) reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin, citing information provided by Brazilian Bitcoin miner Ray Nasser (https://twitter.com/RayNasser123) in an interview on the Bitcoinheiros YouTube channel.

Nasser reportedly said:
https://i.imgur.com/n0kwckA.png

It was explained in the report that Aramco could use the excess gas (by-product) generated by oil extraction in order to mine digital assets, which would provide extra security for Bitcoin while generating carbon credits for the company.

Aramco has not yet issued any statement about venturing into Bitcoin mining.

excuse my ignorance, but in saudi arabia are bitcoin laws friendly? because i remember reading somewhere that in saudi arabia they didn't want bitcoin, i can't remember where the hell i read this.

This is not going to be an easy decision by the company, the report is that some miner proposed something to mine Bitcoin from the by products of the energy they produce but i is owned by the king of Saudi if i am right because all these high profile companies will be owned by the company and we have not heard about any positive news from them regarding Bitcoin and hence we can see this as a proposal.

I have read about religious issues as a barrier to accept Bitcoin, some form of religious law in the religion prohibits them if i remember correctly.

A very poor headline.

The representative from a bitcoin mining operator has approached Saudi Aramco and said "We'll pay you to let us use your flared gas that is otherwise going to waste". Of course they are going to say yes to free money, but that doesn't mean they are "interested in mining bitcoin". If Saudi Aramco start buying miners and building their own mining operations, then sure, but for the time being a third party company is simply asking to use some of their excess resources to power their miners.

Since flared gas is simply wasted and burned in to the atmosphere, it is quite interesting that the article states that the amount of gas that Saudi Aramco wastes in this manner could power half of the global bitcoin hashrate. Half the network from the wastage of a single company! Perhaps next time someone complains about the environmental impact of bitcoin we could invite them to turn their attention to Saudi Aramco instead.

I'm not sure about that. The latest information I have found is an article by Decrypt.

According to decrypt (https://decrypt.co/37286/is-bitcoin-halal), former Shariah Advisor to Blossom Finance, Mufti Muhammad Abu-Bakar said in his report, which was last updated in December 2019, argues that all currencies are speculative to some degree due to the nature of supply and demand; since fiat currencies, gold, and most other financial instruments are permissible under Sharia, so too should Bitcoin be.

The full report can be found here:
Shariah Analysis of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, and Blockchain (https://docsend.com/view/x4ayq52)

---

The headline is obvious clickbait. I agree.  ;)

I'm still not convinced that Saudi Aramco will start mining. Broadly speaking, they are still focused on managing their oil resources in the next few years. Then from the excerpt of the article, it is not enough to prove that Saudi Aramco responded very quickly. So we are still waiting for an official decision from mining management regarding the digital economy industry.

that's exactly what i read somewhere, they banned bitcoin so how do you plan to mine bitcoin in a country where bitcoin is banned? maybe someone in this forum that is from saudi arabia can tell us if you use bitcoin in your country


I still think that saudi arabia would not accept bitcoin mining in your country, does anyone know if there is any mining company in saudi arabia?

I was in Saudi Arabia only a few years ago for work and at that time Bitcoin had not reach the first all time high of December 2017 and the religious scholars were having a fight if it was "haram" forbidden or "halal" permitted.In the end the winners were the religious scholars who said it was permitted and the argument they brought was:

"If you buy a good and keep it to sell it at later times after a few days,months or years for a better price this is called business and we all know business is allowed in Islamic religion,the same can be applied to Bitcoin,you buy it today and keep it hoping to sell later after some days,months or years hoping for higher price so we don't see where is the problem with Bitcoin"

Hopefully they are all in the same mind right now but the fact that a big company like Aramco wants to mine Bitcoin is great for Bitcoin as always and even greater is that a company from hard line Islamic country Saudi Arabia is willing to get into mining Bitcoin.

Without any confirmation from aramco, this story still considered as pending and needs to have a fact checks before we're going to officially consider it as legit news.
However, once this plans will be implemented on their country I believed mining transaction business will soon become profitable and probably it will help bitcoin network to become more consistent and efficient.

Saudi Aramco's plan and interest but it is not certain that it will be implemented.
If large oil companies use the excess gas generated from oil extraction to mine Bitcoin, it can depress the profit of mining, so that miners do not use coal or other fossil fuels for mining, which is good for the environment and beneficial to the future development of Bitcoin.

This may end up like the news about Amazon reportedly gearing up for Bitcoin acceptance as payment very soon. Everybody knows the news spread quickly like fire only to end up being officially denied by the company. This is still a rumor until now, just plain rumor.

Aramco is owned by the Saudi Arabia government. I don't even think the Saudi government has already expressed support for Bitcoin. I cannot imagine Saudi Arabia entering into Bitcoin mining directly.

Countries like Saudi Arabia don’t really have laws that are friendly with Bitcoin, so I don’t know how this is going to work exactly, unless I am wrong about that. I have seen a lot of people Arab countries that have banned bitcoin in the past, so I don’t know if Saudi Arabia is one of them or not, and if they are, then this is not going to work out. And then I don’t know how good this will be to be using gas to mine bitcoin, pardon I am not good at this so I can’t tell which energy source is green or not, but whatever we are considering at this point should be green energy sources that will not be harming our environment in any way. That has been a serious topic for some time and some people have been attacking Bitcoin for the fact that the energy source for mining is not good for the environment.

but with that said.. even in the 1990's the top oil companies have been saying their underground "reserves" of oil are depleting and would run out before 2100. so they already knew they would have to shift to other sources to create energy.
the whole 'lets blame fossil fuel and shift to renewable. is actually a ploy of oil companies needing to diversify but they dont want to pay for the infrastructure. so instead they got governments to set a plan that citizens tax credits turn into grants for many companies to use to make new infrastructure.

the smart plan. "why use own profits of old tech. when you can get free money from tax grants to stop using old tech"

any way your spot on about third party buying excess gas from aramco.. so merit

Another rumor again and there's no official statement coming from Aramco.

It would be a positive rumor but it seems that there's no big effect on the market. While hearing news from the west even it's just a rumor, there's a quick effect on the market.

Let us say they're going to mine bitcoin but the temperature and nature of the country aren't really friendly to mine bitcoin aside from the country itself if they are or not friendly to bitcoin.

I think somebody is doing some spin here. The news did not come from Aramco or any of its representative but just an idea  from someone who might propose it to Aramco. This can be taking a lot of time as there is no hint that Aramco can be interested with the idea, in the first place. Sadly, in the news, I read that Aramco is already going into Bitcoin mining...alas it is not true and nobody knows if anyone in Aramco might even make a comment about it. Some crypto-focused media is just hyping to get the eyeballs they are looking for.

This is information that should literally be passed on to all the so-called mainstream media that have been trying to impose their crazy agendas for years. The energy consumption caused by Bitcoin mining is so small that it is not worth mentioning at all, but the amount of energy thrown literally into the wind is probably so big that it could be compared to the consumption of several large countries on an annual basis.

As for Saudi Aramco, it may be weird that they don't use all that potential energy in some way, but they're obviously making so much money that they're not interested in such little things.

Not a good news! Even though I doubt the genuineness of this news and I personally don't think an oil giant will involve themselves in bitcoin mining. But if it happens, Soudi government will have absolute control over the bitcoin network. They can launch 51% attack as per their own will considering they have deep pocket and they can invest suitably for such huge thing. That should not become a reality for the sake of bitcoin! No single entity should hold so much power on bitcoin network. That will worsen bitcoin's basic structural power - decentralization!

this "flared" gas is the excess stuff they have to release at points of over pressure in the oil collection process.
its not like they just releasing it for the pure hell of it. its the have to release it, or BOOM

its not clean gas that people use in houses.. and the cost to have a gas refinery at every oil rig outweighs the cost of any refined gas being affordable to send down the residential pipeline. so burning it becomes best option

suadi aramco are not going to suddenly make gas refineries/gas powered power plants for the random switch on-off of the over pressure events. .. but if another company wants to give it a shot. they can.

the issues are that the highlight of "flare more gas than half the bitcoin network" sounds massive.. but is not based on 1 oil rig.
its based on thousands of oil rig/pumps/release valves combined around the area. meaning you cant just tap into one pipeline and collect the dirty unrefined gas and convert it to power in one location. it requires lots of refinaries/plants/piping everywhere.
and not a constant supply as the flared gas is only flared when there are over pressure events.

so it will end up costing the third party contracting with aramco alot of set-up investment. either to refine and power generate on site(lots of micro power plants). or transport to a more central location

but hey. if they think they can do it. so be it

we cannot tell if it can give an impact in the market mate., because it seems not legit wherein only rumours such what exist in the internet previously about amazon.. Indeed Saudia already warned their country men that using bitcoin or any cryptocurrency is a high risk and probably that's the reason why bitcoin value on their country is so cheap if you convert to their fiats. For me probably much better to wait for more upcoming news because it's quite skeptical in my personal opinion..

Saudi Aramco company is the world biggest oil company. If they starting investing in bitcoin in means it is a good news for bitcoin. And this news can impact on the price of bitcoin. Mining is also a way of earning money through crypto currency. We install a mining machine and our mining starts. Bitcoin is a global currency and its becomes popular day by day. So, store bitcoins for future. 

The energy companies buy our politicians, and the politicians decide what news we are allowed to view. It's no surprise really. "Make sure you recycle your empty cans!" but also ignore the fact we've just dumped a few billion gallons of oil in to the ocean.

How did you reach that conclusion? How are they going to go from zero hashrate to 51% of the hashrate? They can't just magic a few million ASICs out of thin air. Or what about the infrastructure to convert this flared gas to usable electricity? And even if they use all the flared gas, which is incredibly unlikely, and have enough ASICs to utilize it, which is even more unlikely, then even by their own estimation that would only give them 33% of the hashrate.

the idea offered must be very interesting for Aramco...

it is a pity if that energy is wasted, it is very good if it is used as fuel for Bitcoin mining facilities so that they can generate millions of dollars. It would be great news if Aramco actually added business to Bitcoin mining.

Of course it's a good news but if you think about it, we don't know what their true plans is for getting into the mining sector of bitcoin, I mean they're making billions if not trillions in oil annually so I think that they're planning something big because you don't get in the market just for petty reasons like you want adoption right.

Yes, if they still have excess energy, why not use it? If Aramco will officially announce their venture in bitcoin mining, that would give positive impact to bitcoin market. Now, if China is pushing their miners outside their country, it is their loss and not the bitcoin community. This will show that bitcoin can survive without them and many are willing to get the mining market that they are abandoning.

There has been a clarification about this issue and they denied their involvement in Bitcoin mining. They only focus on the development and business of Blockchain-based.
So, it confirms that the issue is false.
Source: Saudi Aramco dismisses ‘false and inaccurate’ rumors on Bitcoin mining (https://cointelegraph.com/news/saudi-aramco-dismisses-false-and-inaccurate-rumors-on-bitcoin-mining)

And about the regulation and how Bitcoin in that country, the citizens can trade legally any cryptocurrency in that country. However, if they experience any losses or losing money because of crypto, the country doesn't give any financial protection to it. SO basically it is allowed but all risks are taken by the traders or investors themselves.

I don't think that this is going to happen, i think its just a floating idea but in reality they won't be able to actually put it to work, the main reason would be because this a government owned oil company and not private so a decision to use the access energy to mine bitcoin can not go through especially we are talking about Saudi government that are known to being really strict and controlling everything about the country, and even if this is true we are trying to move away from involving bitcoin mining with consuming oil.

I agreed with what you said about the Saudi Arabia government been strict but we are talking about innovative technology and the government already know Bitcoin is unstoppable and if the Aramco company using their excess energy to mine Bitcoin will provide more jobs for some people who are jobless due to the Covid-19 why would they choose not to do it?
The last time I check some Islamic countries that were against Bitcoin now allow the mining of Bitcoin with some rules and regulations and gaining from it. I believe this could motivate Saudi Arabia to join the league of that country.

This can be possible because Golf countries are now taking interest in the technology and implementing it to make their country more secure and trying to digitilize every major section.

They will not allow the use of cryptocurrency because it used in gambling and scaming
Gambling and scaming are forbidden in their religion
is forbidden in religion because it harms you or harms others

With that argument, then it means that they're also not allowed to use—

knives because it's being used to stab people,
cars because it's being used for criminals to escape,
computers because it's being used to steal money/identities/assets,

and they're not allowed to drink water as well! Because well, even criminals drink water. :'(

Right?

No, those scammers are in internet, they are hiding behind the Internet
If they existed in real life ... you will understand the meaning
it is a danger

That's kind of weird but at the same time promising, it's weird because they are already making trillions in oil alone and it's derivatives and they're getting into mining? Not to mention that Middle East where they are situated is pretty hot place to do mining unless they are going to spend a lot of money for cooling the mining facility or better yet invest in mining in Canada or countries that have a good climate.

Your last paragraph is what I exactly thought about as well. If that is the case and they would build up mining operations, I would rather say that isn't quite the best news our community is looking for. Such a powerful company being able to power half the network at this point with a byproduct of their main product is pretty concerning. It would make attacks on the network for them less painful than for any other actor I guess.

How could that even explain the company's interest in bitcoin mining? There's not even a connection to be made with that snippet and what Saudi Aramco is doing.

Just because they have the capability to power half the network with the waste they produce, doesn't mean they'd do it. They were approached by a mining operator, asking if they could use the waste to power their mining rigs. At best, this is a business proposal, and not Saudi Aramco hinting that they want to go into the mining business. They just provide the power but another company owns the machines. That's waaaaay different than the oil giant expressing interest on hashing.

No news here, I guess.

Anything will be legal in Saudi Arabia, as long as you have the right connections and the right amount of money. There is no reason that they would be explicitly against cryptocurrencies that I can see - it's not in any way against their religion like gambling or "adult entertainment" related. If they were able to install enough solar panels to cover the cooling and power expenses on the right scale then theoretically they could make it into a profitable income considering they have an endless desert to fill. The laws might not be friendly to bitcoin, but they are not necessarily unfriendly either, so it might be a good place if you can install enough capacity.

Isn't mining btc different from actually investing capital to buy already mined btc from the market! The post read Saudi aramco wants to start mining btc, if they are not investing then I don't see how this is a good news to btc as their capital will only go into buying mining equipment,  except am the one who is did not perceive the post properly, however, still very good to see such company trying to interact with btc somehow.

I knew that just like Amazon’s this was just a rumor propagated by bitcoin advocates to cause an increase in the prices of bitcoin. Just like the UK, Saudi Arabia authorities has already painstakingly pointed out the possible red flags of buying or trading Bitcoin. They don't support it in the first place so I personally didn't see any reason why Aramco was going to either. I’m sure that very soon someone will say that Exxon will venture into bitcoin mining just to shake the market.

I hope Saudi Aramco will join the crypto world to mine bitcoin. This company is very big, if it really happens they will mine bitcoin then a very high spike will occur in the next few days, everyone will buy bitcoin again in very large quantities because of the support of this Aramco company.

Isn't it clear here confirms?
If this confirmation is correct, then we do not need to emerge the matter.
But if this confirmation is still not true or unofficial, there is still hope for the next Crypto world.
But at least they are interested in the blockchain adoption huh?

There are many rumors that big companies will soon adopt Bitcoin, but only a few big companies are finally adopting Bitcoin. But it is possible that
rumors of Aramco companies adopting Bitcoin could happen, by starting Bitcoin mining. At least the rumors got the market back up and Bitcoin could
rise again to the price of $42k, especially if the rumors of the Aramco company come true, I can't imagine the price of Bitcoin going up to $50k.
I really hope this can come true, and can make other big companies join in adopting Bitcoin.

Hopefully this is not a rumor like Amazon which denies accepting bitcoin, if this happens it can be ascertained that in a short time the price of bitcoin can reach $100k, they are a large company that can buy 1 million bitcoins in one transaction.

Rumours are part of the development. Maybe the same can be a truth. If Aramco has got plans now this could've been announced officially by the authorities. For now there is nothing official. Based on someone's tweet we're making discussion.

For now, we don't need to do anything but wait for official announcement. If that will push thru, that would be great. Also, it is better to use their extra energy rather than go to waste, right? I believe, those companies that have extra energy are also thinking about this kind of venture. Who knows they are already setting up their own mining rig? Nobody needs to know their business.

I don't even know who should I believe in right now because there's no article provided to quash the claim that they are planning to start mining bitcoin. Plus it just seems so good that they are going to get into the market and anyone would definitely welcome a trillion dollar company into the market.

So just as I suspected in my first post, a pure click bait headline based on absolutely nothing concrete from the first article. Why is it so hard to get some decent journalism regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrency? It seems every news site is filled with half truths and outright falsehoods and only care about clicks.

If you read my last post higher up in this thread, I explain why that isn't going to happen. You can't just instantly create an enormous mining operation consisting of 51% of the hash rate out of nothing.

Please actually read the thread before replying. Rengga Jati has already answered this with a link to an official statement.

I hope this project will be start soon. honestly I feel little bit sad because we still use paper money. I think if we still use paper money then there are many trees that will be gone. I mean bitcoin is a solution for global warming issue. Bitcoin need electricity to operate but I think it is still better then cutting trees which need many years for growing. And it is a good time to get involved in bitcoin, if a big institutions take a part at this early stage of adoption then that institution will have big influence in bitcoin market which mean is big profit for them.

I just think maybe now most of the media is more concerned with traffic to come to them using the clickbait title. The title that is felt will make noisy and famous later. Moreover, many people only believe in the title displayed without willing to research further into it.

You should look at the title and description of the activity this company, this company with the name Aramco is not aiming for adoption, their plan was to build a mining system and become a bitcoin mine but some small wind said that Aramco confirmed to be a fabrication and I'm pretty confident again this is a hate joke by the media because just estimating how much bitcoin has been mined as well as the huge bitcoin mining businesses. Their mining has been decimated by relative scarcity, and new businesses that want to enter here need a long and very risky time before the return of capital.

Nono, I fully agree with you on that one as well. I rather thought that Saudi Aramco might even be able to buy out the companies that produce those Asics. It would certainly not be possible to build those mining operations over night, but if they were really serious about it, wouldn't you at least consider the option that they could pull it off, maybe within two years give or take?

3rd largest company by what measures? I'm quite sure that Apple, Google, and Amazon are all "larger" companies. 

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Saudi Amarco did buy out Bitmain, MicroBT, Canaan, and a bunch of other ASIC producers, stopped selling ASICs, and just produced a bunch of ASICs for themselves. Even then, as you say, they would still need a significant period of time to build enough ASICs and get them all up and running before they could come close to anything even approaching a majority of the hash rate. In the meantime, you now have a massive unmet market for ASICs. There is absolutely zero chance that no one would step up and meet the global demand for more ASICs during that time, continuing to push the total hashrate higher and further out of reach of any one company or entity to reach a majority.

By market cap: https://companiesmarketcap.com/
They are third behind Apple and Microsoft.

Good point again. You know, sometimes being a bit paranoid can't hurt and usually there is nothing like the perfect solution to a dynamic problem because the problem is a moving target. Bitcoin's incentive architecture is so solid that every now and then I try to think of the worst possible scenario just to give failure of the kind we are discussing here a little bit of a realistic chance. The market mechanism you brought up however certainly falsifies my hypothesis. It's very true that all kinds of companies or investors around the world would out of a sudden recognize the business opportunity of unmet global demand for Asics. There would even be an incentive for all those Bitcoin holders to finance a fund that invests in research which is solely dedicated to outcompete the Asics produced by Aramco. Bitcoin is a damn weird resilient thing! :P Antonopoulos once compared it to a rat in a dirty underground channel that grow up with the severest of imaginable circumstances and attacks, yet survive and grow stronger everyday. Quite a good analogy as it seems. ;) Nice talking!

Wow power up half of bitcoin today? that's such an amazing amount. But well i guess it's no surprise since it's the world 3rd largest company. It might need to take a lot of effort, and i guess it won't be as easy as it seems? Can they really overtake the mining for 50% of it immediately? i guess they will need time. But i think this is such a good news, especially if they can make it more efficient or even ecofriendly which has been quite issue too recently for many people. They might get a lot of support if they're showing the best they could do regarding this.

Completely agree. :) If you aren't being at least a little paranoid, then you probably aren't being as safe or secure as you should be.

You also have to consider the motivation behind such a move. Even if we said Aramco could buy out every ASIC producer in the world, mass produce ASICs for themselves at a huge cost, build a huge infrastructure to power all these ASICs, and eventually end up with 51% of the hashrate, what would they do next? Destroy bitcoin by mining only empty blocks, and therefore render the billions they just spent on ASICs and infrastructure completely wasted? And for what? What threat to an oil company is bitcoin? If they did end up with a huge amount of hashrate, then they are incentivized to mine honestly since they will make far more profit that way.

There is also nothing stopping bitcoin from forking to a new algorithm or mechanism that does not require ASICs and renders them useless.

Glad to see they acted quickly on this, I would really want to see companies bringing those morons in court, every youtube channel thinks it is a news website, every single peon with a LLC with a 10k annual turnover thinks he is a businessman and can easily deal with a 2 trillion giant over tweeter and telegram.


From the start, the whole thing was about this obscure investor who has been caught with his lies to simply buy from Aramco the excess flare gas and turn it into electricity, then mine. There was at no point anything about Aramco being involved in the actual mining. If we would go for this logic there isn't a single oil extraction company that isn't involved in mining as oil and gas are used all over the world to create electricity and thus some mining rigs.
Since all nuclear sites in France are owned by the French government does that means France itself as a country is mining bitcoin and altcoins?

Saudi Arabia has large number of Refineries in its Eastern, western and central provinces  where Flare gas is burnt and this process in fact  pollutes the atmosphere as toxic gases are released to atmosphere. While using Flare gas to mine Bitcoin is not a bad idea because it won't harm the environment as it would reduce Gas emission  to atmosphere and instead  of burning the  gas it will be used to produce electricity  which is environment friendly and economically viable idea. This news item apperaed in Media but yet to be confirmed by ARAMCO.

saudi aramco, the 3rd largest company in the world, is planning to mine bitcoin, I'm not so sure if they really want to mine bitcoin, because I read in some articles, they denied all the news that said they planned to mine bitcoin, but I think this news It's just a rumor, I don't know who published this news, I don't even know..