GMO Internet, a publicly listed IT firm headquartered in Japan, has set August as the tentative launch date for its previously announced cloud mining service.

The company revealed last fall that it was devoting tens of millions of dollars to its mining venture, with the aim of building a site for pursuing the energy-intensive process by which new transactions are added to a blockchain and new coins are minted as a reward. With cloud mining, customers can purchase hashing power and receive the rewards of that process, minus any associated fees  – though the model has long been associated with fraud, including companies that sell more processing power than they actually possess.

In a Feb. 9 announcement, GMO said that it would, beginning in March, hold a series of events in order to drum up interest in the service, which will feature two-year contracts for a whopping $5 million. Though the exact location of the GMO mine isn't publicly known, the facility is said to be based in northern Europe.

"We have already been receiving inquiries about our cloud mining service, so from March 2018, GMO Internet will hold the information session in 9 cities to meet the needs of the companies or businesses worldwide who have announced their intention to participate in the cloud mining," the company said.

GMO described the August launch timeline as "tentative."

Notably, the firm will use some of the tokens mined at the facility for its GMO Coin exchange "in order to "contribute to an increase in diversity and liquidity of the cryptocurrency market."

The Tokyo-based company has made a number of announcements related to the technology in recent months. These notably include a bitcoin-based payroll system, which it said would be made available to its own employees. GMO has also unveiled services built around know-your-customer and anti-money laundering tools.

Image via Shutterstock