Bitcoin payment processor BitPay Inc. has announced that it has entered into a multi-million dollar development agreement with Bitmain, the world’s largest bitcoin mining hardware producer, headquartered in Beijing. Over the next few years BitPay will create advanced open source software for the miners, mining pools and full node operators.

The London Summit 2017 is coming, get involved!

Join the iFX EXPO Asia and discover your gateway to the Asian Markets

“At BitPay, we recognize that there is an untapped market of mining companies that require more advanced platforms for their businesses than are available today,” commented BitPay CEO Stephen Pair. “We value having Bitmain as a customer, and we believe that miners and mining technology providers like Bitmain play a vital role in the security and ongoing success of the Bitcoin blockchain.”

“BitPay has established itself as a leader in open source development for the Bitcoin blockchain,” said Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu. “We believe that together we can make real improvements in how we secure blockchain transactions and grow the impact of blockchain technology in digital payments.”

We recently exclusively reported that the Chinese bitcoin mining giant is actively looking for artificial intelligence (AI) experts to establish an AI R&D team in Israel. Leveraging its engineering prowess for AI applications could become Bitmain’s first major business avenue outside the bitcoin world.