Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group Pushes Further Into Crypto Mining — WSJ

By Vicky Ge HuangDigital Currency Group, a crypto conglomerate that ran into trouble during the 2022 crypto-market meltdown, has launched a new business focused on mining cryptocurrencies.Dubbed Fortitude Mining, the business is a spinout from DCG's bitcoin-mining infrastructure company Foundry and will focus on mining a variety of cryptocurrencies beyond bitcoin.Fortitude will be the fifth subsidiary under DCG, the sprawling crypto company that founder Barry Silbert said he modeled after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.Silbert and DCG faced allegations in 2022 that they defrauded investors. A lawsuit from the New York attorney general followed. DCG's lending arm, Genesis Global Capital, filed for bankruptcy.Fortitude, which has an eight-person team at launch, aims to scale up by acquiring new mining machines and small- to mid-sized facilities, Silbert said. The company is also in early conversations with investors to raise outside capital.With crypto prices rising in the past year, DCG has slowly made a comeback. In November, the company launched a decentralized artificial-intelligence company called Yuma, which provides capital for entrepreneurs to build applications on the fledgling Bittensor blockchain.This item is part of a Wall Street Journal live coverage event. The full stream can be found by searching P/WSJL (WSJ Live Coverage).