Benzinga | May 14, 2021 06:32AM EDT

The9 Inks Three Chia Cryptocurrency Mining Machine Purchase Agreements For $5.7M

* The9 Ltd (NASDAQ: NCTY) inked Chia (XCH) cryptocurrency mining machine purchase and cloud service leasing agreements with three separate vendors, worth an aggregate sum of over $5.7 million.

* The9 will procure 130 Pebibytes Netspace and join the ecological construction of Chia cryptocurrency, also known as the "Green Bitcoin Alternative," under the arrangement.

* The9 had previously invested in Bitcoin, Filecoin mining machines, and Chia is the third type of cryptocurrency mining employed by The9.

* Chia was created by BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen. It was developed through a powerful, easy-to-audit and secured new intelligent transaction programming language called Chialisp.

* Chia uses a proof of space and time (POST) consensus algorithm.

* Users can use the remaining hard disk space in the storage device for transactional verification with relatively lower computing power and electricity consumption, rendering Chia a higher green and environmentally friendly blockchain technology.

* Chia's main network went live on March 19 and was opened to exchange its cryptocurrency XCH with other cryptocurrencies on May 4.

* XCH is listed for trading on the Huobi and OKEx exchanges.

* Price action: NCTY shares traded higher by 6.77% at $14.35 in the premarket session on the last check Friday.