Lumerin Announces New Integration With Portal DEX

PRESS RELEASE. CHICAGO – Feb 22, 2024 – Lumerin, a decentralized Hashpower Marketplace built on Arbitrum that has built technology to make Bitcoin hashrate a liquid asset allowing for global access to peer-to-peer, decentralized hashrate trading, today announced a new integration with Portal, the first trust minimized, cross-chain swaps that involve no bridges, custody or wrapping.

Portal Swaps SDK was developed by Portal, a fintech provider advancing financial self-sovereignty via the first bridgeless, wrapper-less cross-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) network. Unlike today’s cross-chain exchanges, Portal uses Atomic Swaps technology to avoid custodial risk, the biggest hidden risk in the cryptocurrency space. This new integration creates new solutions for the Bitcoin mining community to navigate uncertainties stemming from regulatory changes, energy policies, inflation rates and currency volatility, among other factors, as well as from the Bitcoin Halving event on April 19, 2024, that will reduce the reward for mining new blocks by half.

Lumerin’s peer-to-peer marketplace provides a platform for miners to create and sell Bitcoin hashpower contracts directly in the open market. Purchasable using Lumerin’s native token (LMR), the contracts are intended to normalize revenue streams for professional miners by enhancing consistency in payments and liquidity.

“Lumerin’s integration allows Portal DEX users to have access to the pioneering market for hashpower contracts, which helps miners earn a steady income despite fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices,” said Chandra Duggirala, co-founder and CEO of Portal. “By integrating Portal’s Layer 2 atomic swap technology into Lumerin’s marketplace, Bitcoiners can also easily swap BTC for native Lumerin tokens and trade tokens from Ethereum’s Layer 2 directly. This saves both time and money because it eliminates the need for complex and time-consuming transactions between different blockchains and Layer 2 bridges.”

Hashpower refers to the computational power used to process transactions and secure the Bitcoin network. It’s a measure of the collective processing power of all miners in the Bitcoin network. The total hashpower of the Bitcoin network is an important metric because it indicates the security and robustness of the network. A hashpower contract is an agreement where one party agrees to provide a certain amount of computing power for mining cryptocurrencies to another party for a specified period. It allows individuals to participate in mining activities without having to purchase and maintain expensive mining hardware.

The Lumerin-Portal integration also addresses the increasing demand for privacy in the cryptocurrency industry by enabling and expanding access to “virgin” Bitcoin – bitcoins that have never been spent or transferred from their original address since they were mined. Virgin bitcoins are considered “fresh” from the blockchain, not sent by any counterparty and hold no history of transactions except for the mining reward. Virgin bitcoins are highly sought after by investors for their pristine history that ensures privacy and avoids the stigma of coins previously involved in illicit activities.

“Virgin Bitcoin, accessible via Lumerin, is a private method for acquiring Bitcoin,” said Ryan Condron, a long-time Bitcoin mining veteran and CEO and founder of Lumerin. “With fixed supply dynamics and increasing demand, Lumerin’s integration with the Portal DEX Network is poised to significantly elevate one-click accessibility to Bitcoin that has never been spent or transacted outside the Ethereum ecosystem, including existing Bitcoin holders.”

Lumerin’s hashpower contracts are set to evolve into NFTs, enhancing their broader availability and enabling a secondary market. This development will allow single-chain NFT contracts to be traded against various digital assets on multiple chains, including Bitcoin. Portal has already successfully demonstrated cross-layer, cross-chain Layer 1 and Layer 2 swaps of NFTs on Bitcoin, including Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.