The bear market of 2018 has caused a lot of problems for most cryptocurrency companies in the long run. As the value of Bitcoin and all altcoins, tokens, and assets is still incredibly low compared to the 2017 levels, some providers will have to close up shop. The latest one to announce such a turn of events is CoinHive. The popular crypto mining solution provider will suspend its services come March 8th.
CoinHive is Calling it Quits
Most people will not remember CoinHive fondly. Not because the service provided is terrible by any means, as it offers a genuine alternative to the traditional ad-driven business model for content providers. However, their mining scripts have gotten a very bad reputation due to the rise of cryptojacking malware in 2018. Most of those tools all seemed to rely on CoinHive mining scripts in one way or another.
Combined with the declining price of Monero – or XMR – it seems CoinHive has gotten itself into a very awkward position as of right now. The falling XMR price has caused a lot of problems for investors and traders as well. However, it seems to be slow to recover as of right now, which puts even more strain on companies such as CoinHive.
That is not the only reason why the company is calling it quits, though. CoinHive also noted a massive decrease in overall Monero hashrate. This is primarily due to the most recent hard fork introduced by the developers, it seems the overall Monero mining effort has taken a bit of a blow. There will be another hard fork on March 9, which will also introduce an update of the mining algorithm itself.
Because of that change, CoinHive seemingly comes at risk of becoming obsolete altogether. As such, the service will be discontinued, and all mining scripts in existence will cease to function in their entirety. Dashboards will remain accessible until the end of April 2019, which will let users withdraw funds until that point. It is unclear what will happen with unclaimed payouts afterward, although this warning is issued well in advance.
The main thing to keep an eye out for is how the shutdown of CoinHive will affect the cryptojacking efforts globally. Since most of these malware strains rely on CoinHive scripts, it seems logical to assume earnings generated by criminals will face a major setback as well. That doesn’t mean they will not be able to come up with new solutions, by any means, yet it may trigger a positive shift in the long run.
While it will be sad to see CoinHive disappear, it is evident the cryptocurrency industry is not in the best of states right now. As long as this rather bearish market trend continues, there will be further casualties eventually. At the same time, this development can provide an opportunity for other companies to stake their claim. This industry is constantly evolving behind the scenes, after all.