Cloud crypto mining platform NiceHash has introduced a new firmware product with features developed by Marathon Digital, making the mining company’s technology available to retail and home miners.

The new firmware will be marketed as NiceHash Firmware Powered by MARA. Marathon Digital is the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) miner by market cap and the most efficient, according to NiceHash. It mined 390 BTC in May. Marathon Digital chief technology officer Ashu Swami said:

“This collaboration allows us to bring advanced safety and optimization features to Bitcoin miners of all sizes, enhancing their performance and profitability.”

Mining firmware to combine the best features

Marathon Digital introduced new MARAFW firmware in March to roll out to its fleet of over 200,000 ASICs and its enterprise clients. NiceHash Firmware Powered by MARA will be a different product combining characteristics of both producers. Users will pay a fee of 2%, or 1.4% when using the NiceHash pool.

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NiceHash firmware is compatible with a variety of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining machine models and ASIC management tools. It operates with a variety of algorithms as well and can switch between them as their efficiencies vary.

It also supports dedicated algorithms, adding Kadena’s Blake2s algorithm in April to enable Kadena (KDA) coin mining, for example. NiceHash software also provides such features as autotuning, temperature control and a mobile app for offsite ASIC management.

Pooling resources to support the mining industry

The profitability of crypto mining has been closely watched since the halving that reduced miners’ profit per block by 50% in April. United States presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed support for the U.S. crypto mining industry, but some have doubted the sincerity of his pro-crypto statements.

In addition to offering software and mining services, NiceHash operates a hashrate market, where ASIC owners can sell their hashing power for any coin NiceHash supports. The buyer receives the reward for blocks mined, while the seller is paid the average price of all orders in the NiceHash pool, whether the buyer mines a block or not, thus reducing the seller’s risk.

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