Saudi Aramco, world’s 3rd largest company, plans to start mining Bitcoin?

[Stalker22]

Investing.com reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin, citing information provided by Brazilian Bitcoin miner Ray Nasser in an interview on the Bitcoinheiros YouTube channel.

Nasser reportedly said:


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.

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[Slow death]

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.

[7788bitcoin]

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

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.

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.

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.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Investing.com reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin

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.

[Stalker22]

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.

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.

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

According to decrypt, 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

Investing.com reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin

A very poor headline.
...

The headline is obvious clickbait. I agree.  

[haidil]

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.

[Slow death]

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.

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.

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

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?

[swogerino]

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.

[Hippocrypto]

Investing.com reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin, citing information provided by Brazilian Bitcoin miner Ray Nasser in an interview on the Bitcoinheiros YouTube channel.

Nasser reportedly said:


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.

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.

[Caldear]

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.

[Fundamentals Of]

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.

[lixer]

Investing.com reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin, citing information provided by Brazilian Bitcoin miner Ray Nasser in an interview on the Bitcoinheiros YouTube channel.

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.

[franky1]

Investing.com reported that the Middle East oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is interested in mining bitcoin

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.

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

[jossiel]

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.

[DapanasFruit]

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.

[Lucius]

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.

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.

[avikz]

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!

[franky1]

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

[Ararbermas]

And this is good, now we expect the price to rise in the near future.

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..

[Rehan Zakir]

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.