Off the back of yet another increase in the Bitcoin mining difficulty to an all time high of 43,971,662,056 comes news that CEX.IO has suspended their cloud mining services. CEX.IO state that the increasing difficulty coupled with the recent drop in the price of bitcoin lead to its decision. An update posted to the CEX.IO blog reads:
Taking into consideration our users' interests, the recent Bitcoin price drop, as well as the upscaling of the mining difficulty, CEX.IO Bitcoin Exchange would like to announce a temporary suspension of cloud mining services provided by the platform at the time of the next difficulty increase.
According to the 11.5. paragraph of CEX.IO Terms of Use:
"Mining with using User's Gigahashes can be stopped by CEX.IO if the amount of the Maintenance Cost exceeds rewards for each mined block or if the mining is economically inexpedient."
Thereby, all GHS formerly purchased by CEX.IO users remain their absolute property, with appropriate figures reflected in users' profile balance. Additionally users will be able to manually enable mining with Gigahashes by their own choice.
"Suspension of CEX.IO cloud mining service is only a forced temporary measure, the result of cloud mining costs exceeding mining profit," Jeffrey Smith, Chief Information Officer of CEX.IO. "Currently all cloud mining/maintenance costs are directed to the Hardware provider, hence, we are open for negotiations with additional mining hardware providers, who can offer favourable terms. And, as soon as we get an opportunity to upgrade mining hardware, or come to more efficient terms with energy suppliers, cloud mining process will be automatically resumed."
Meanwhile, CEX.IO will continue operating as full service exchange platform for trading cryptocurrencies and fiat money.
With no set date for when the "temporary suspension" will be lifted, the 300,000 claimed users of CEX.IO look likely to remain in limbo as do their supposed cloud miners despite the Bitcoin network continuing to strive forward without them from hereon in.