Tiny Chinese-made BV100 radioactive battery can last 50 years and it’s coming in 2025

Complete cryptocurrency market coverage with live coin prices, charts and crypto market cap featuring coins on 750 exchanges. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. First developed in the early 1950s, these devices harness the energy released when radioactive isotopes decay into other elements. As long as the radioactive element is decaying, the battery will continue generating power.

1. “We recommend achieving Bitcoin exposure via Bitcoin miners.” The firm said Riot and CleanSpark are its preferred picks.
2. Bitcoin miners have pared back gains in the last few weeks as the price of bitcoin has fallen, and in April, a market-moving event dubbed the “halving” will cut the prize that miners receive in half.
3. The process requires expensive equipment, technical expertise and a lot of electricity.

Chinese scientists have built a nuclear battery that can produce power for up to 50 years without being recharged. The technology, which contains a radioactive isotope, or version of nickel, as its power source, will be the first of its kind available for general purchase, Betavolt representatives said on Jan. 8 in a translated statement. “It is not surprising that listed U.S miners are investing aggressively to ‘land grab’ a higher share” of the $900 billion bitcoin network, the analysts wrote. As recently as 2021, Core was one of the largest publicly traded crypto mining firms in the U.S., hitting the market in July of that year via a special purpose acquisition company in a deal that valued it at roughly $4.3 billion. However, bitcoin lost over 60% of its value in 2022, meaning all that digital currency Core was producing was suddenly worth a lot less while operating costs remained high.

Core said the new credit facility along with projected operating cash flow will allow the company to “emerge and continue executing its multi-year growth plan.” You need an account in order to star coins, keep track of your portfolio, set up alerts, vote on coins as well as use all the other advanced features.

“We expect 2024 to be a break-out inflection year for crypto,” Bernstein analysts wrote. “We recommend achieving Bitcoin exposure via Bitcoin miners.” The firm said Riot and CleanSpark are its preferred picks. Core is in the process of deploying tens of thousands of more mining rigs with the goal of increasing its capacity by more than 50% over the next four years.

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There are also new potential opportunities for miners to collect fees, as a startup ecosystem is built on top of bitcoin’s base chain, Bernstein said in a note on Jan. 17. The public markets have been going big in mining since bitcoin started rebounding. Marathon Digital soared more than 590% in 2023 while Riot Blockchain jumped more than 350% and CleanSpark gained over 400%. Also helping Core as it reenters the public market is an expansive footprint of mines across the country, and investors’ renewed enthusiasm toward bitcoin, which jumped 150% in 2023.

“The shielding here is critical because you don’t want something radioactive damaging the body,” Nino said. Radiation protection, often made of materials such as lead or tungsten, is usually integrated into the battery design, but Nino cautioned it’s important to match the type and amount of shielding with the radioactive element used. If you need more power, meanwhile, you simply add a higher concentration of the radioactive source, but then you need additional protection. That can become impractical, said Nino, if more and more of the device is occupied by shielding. The new battery, dubbed “BV100”, is smaller than a coin, measuring 0.6 x 0.6 x 0.2 inches (15 x 15 x 5 millimeters), and generates 100 microwatts of power. If approved for use in devices like smartphones, future generations of the battery would ultimately remove the need to ever charge them, company representatives said.

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Without sufficient cash on hand to repay the financing debt owed on equipment it was leasing, Core was forced to enter bankruptcy in December 2022. Victoria Atkinson is a freelance science journalist, specializing in chemistry and its interface with the natural and human-made worlds. Currently based in York (UK), she formerly worked as a science content developer at the University of Oxford, and later as a member of the Chemistry World editorial team. Since becoming a freelancer, Victoria has expanded her focus to explore topics from across the sciences and has also worked with Chemistry Review, Neon Squid Publishing and the Open University, amongst others. The BV100 uses a semiconductor layer to capture these electrons and conduct them through the battery in an organized fashion. “A semiconductor is in-between a conductor like a metal and an insulator like rubber. The electrons can only move if they have enough energy so we can control them as they are moved,” Nino said.

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The restructuring plan announced Tuesday has slashed $400 million in debt from Core’s balance sheet by “converting equipment lender and convertible note holder debt to equity,” the company said in a statement. Just over a year after the crypto winter sent bitcoin miner Core Scientific spiraling into bankruptcy, the Texas-based company is back on the Nasdaq. These radioisotopes pose little danger if they’re used in space, for example, but need shielding with materials that https://cryptolisting.org/ can absorb harmful radiation if used in devices like pacemakers or in future smartphones to be considered safe. Betavolt’s battery sandwiches the radioactive nickel between two ultrathin plates of diamond, a particularly efficient semiconducting material, converting the electrons released by radioactive decay into a usable electric current. Betavolt’s battery uses nickel-63 as the radioactive source, which Nino explained decays into copper through a beta pathway.

“In simple terms, you have a neutron (a neutral subatomic particle) that transforms into a proton (a positive subatomic particle) by emitting an electron. If you can do something with that electron, it’s a source of electricity,” he said. Bitcoin miners have pared back gains in the last few weeks as the price of bitcoin has fallen, and in April, a market-moving event dubbed the “halving” will cut the prize that miners receive in half. Rather than liquidating, Core continued to operate and reached a deal with senior security noteholders who hold the bulk of the company’s debt. But Juan Claudio Nino, a materials scientist at the University of Florida, is skeptical. Its size means it contains relatively little radioisotope and it produces just 0.01% of the electricity required. “Certainly it’s within the range for a pacemaker or perhaps a passive wireless sensor. But in its current form, it just doesn’t have enough power to run a cell phone,” he said.

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The company also plans to research the use of different nuclear isotopes in future versions of its nuclear battery, including strontium-90, promethium-147 and deuterium, which can last between two and 30 years in a device. The challenge of how to access the maximum power from a single battery is still an area of research and Betavolt plans to launch a 1 watt battery in 2025 which is much closer to the 2 – 6 W required by a standard cell phone. In the tech coin price meantime, the company suggested combining its batteries in parallel to increase the power directed to a device. BetaVolt’s BV100 is smaller than a coin and contains a radioactive isotope of nickel that decays into copper and supplies power to a device for up to 50 years. “It accomplished exactly what we wanted to accomplish, which was reducing debt and giving us time to pay down any remaining debt on our balance sheet over the course of five years.”

The process requires expensive equipment, technical expertise and a lot of electricity. The halving, which happens roughly every four years, is written into bitcoin’s code and is designed to stave off inflation. Though it will immediately impact miner profits, it’s also historically proven to be a catalyst for a run-up in the price of bitcoin. During the crypto market’s previous bull market run, the world’s largest cryptocurrency rose more than 560%. “When bitcoin prices declined and power prices increased, obviously that hurt our levered free cash flow position, as well as hurt our balance sheet, since we were carrying bitcoin on balance sheet,” Core CEO Adam Sullivan told CNBC in an interview. However, despite the need for weighty shielding, nuclear batteries do boast a much higher energy density than conventional lithium-ion batteries — ten times as much according to Betavolt.

It means nuclear batteries typically have decades-long lifespans and are commonly used to power spacecraft or automated scientific stations — where equipment can be left unattended for years at a time. In 2023, the company minted 13,762 bitcoin from its fleet of mines, or around $540 million at the token’s current price. That doesn’t include the profit Core generates from mining coins on behalf of other companies.