Source: Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal has a video of a CoinTerra mining datacenter located in Utah. The Austin-based designer of miners has a facility filled with thousands of its 1.6 TH/s units hashing away.And with so many miners, the sound of them whirring away is amplified by an order of magnitude that makes the sound seem deafening on the video.The report indicated that the facility rarely requires air conditioning, saying “the facility uses the ambient, dry cool air of the Utah desert to cool down the rigs”.That may be true at night, but Utah is in a high desert where it’s hot during the day in summer. There are very few datacenters that don’t need to utilize air conditioning, and this massive CoinTerra rig is likely not one of them.Alpha Technology says it’s still working with Dexcel 
Rendering of the Viper scrypt miner. Source: Alpha TechnologyManchester, UK-based Alpha Technology, which plans to bring a powerful scrypt miner to market, says that it still has a key partnership with Dexcel Designs in place. Mohammed Akram, Director of Alpha Techology, told CoinDesk:“Our partnership with Dexcel is fine. We have actually completed most of our design work, all work now is from the foundry and our manufacturing partners.”Rumors of a possible breakdown in relations between Alpha and Dexcel have caused some turmoil. Customers who already preordered mining units began requesting refunds en masse.The company says that they are still on schedule to begin shipping units in July. It currently has two different models on its website. They are both called the Viper, and one has 50MH/s of power at 375W for £1,350. A more powerful version of the Viper has 250MH/s of power at 1,875W for £5,450.00.Better Business Bureau warns on mining
Cryptocurrency mining is now drawing the scrutiny of the Better Business Bureau (BBB), an independent consumer advocacy group – and it seems CoinTerra is the mining company drawing the most attention from it.A BBB warning on ”bitcoin mining computers” states:“Complaints about [Cointerra] are coming in not only from U.S. customers, but from those in other countries as well, including the United Kingdom and Australia.”According to the BBB, it closed 11 complaints about the company in March and April. However, another 39 have since been opened, which led to the warning about the company.The BBB offers a number of tips for people interested in acquiring mining equipment to better protect themselves. This includes using a credit card for payment, maintaining all order documentation and reviewing the BBB’s website for information regarding specific companies prior to making a purchase.KNCMiner updates 
Rendering of the Titan. Source: KNCMinerFollowing the news that Stockholm, Sweden-based KNCMiner will be taping out its 400MH/s Titan Scrypt miner, the company has another production run of two versions of the Scrypt Titan miners online ready for preorder.There’s no exact timeline for the second batch of Titan preorders, but they will arrive one month after Batch 1 Titans.Though the company’s webstore page for Batch 2 clearly indicates that there are no refunds, KNC has offered customer incentives for its shipment delays.Looking down the road, KNCMiner also offered an update on its 20nm node. The designs, or wafers, have been sent to a fabrication plant to be turned into chips. Surely, when these units come back and are placed on boards KNC will release information on exact performance specs.Mining unknown altcoins 
Block Erupters are popular USB miners. Source: BitcointalkAccording to Coinmarketcap, there are 33 cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization over $1m. So is there potential in mining coins that most people don’t know about?Wired has a short piece examining this that profiles a miner that uses a home rig of USB units. Mining relative unknowns such as infinitecoin and zetacoin could be profitable. It’s essentially a bet on the long term success of altcoins.There is risk, however, that some people will simply trade in these coins for more established digital currencies like bitcoin.Nevertheless, mining protects a network. If a community of miners gets behind a coin, that can safeguard it and thus increase its value if it offers something to the community. Litecoin creator Charlie Lee is quoted saying: “Having ASICs come out to mine litecoin means that it’s really gotten to a point where it’s succeeded.”Block withholding attacks 
The top bitcoin mining pools. Source: BitcoinchartsThe Eligius pool has discovered that it was the victim of an attack, losing at least 300 BTC over the past few months. The name of this vulnerability is called a block withholding attack.It’s when a miner submits low difficulty shares but not block solutions. In effect, the scam fools the pool into thinking miners are participating when they aren’t really.Eligius, one of the oldest pools in existence, says it has identified the source of the attack, and has blocked the individual(s) from participating in the pool.It seems logical from a scammer’s standpoint that the value of bitcoin mining would cause bad actors to attack or fool pools. Here’s hoping that the rest of the pools are on the watch for things like block withholding attacks.Got a cryptocurrency mining tip for future roundups? Contact us. Disclaimer: This article should not be viewed as an endorsement of any of the companies mentioned. Please do your own extensive research before considering investing any funds in these products.Alpha TechnologyBBBblock withholding attacksCointerraEligiusHashFastkncminerWSJOriginal author: Daniel Cawrey