Saudi Arabia's state oil company Saudi Aramco has denied rumours that it plans to mine the first cryptocurrency.
"Due to recent reports that our company will begin bitcoin mining activities, we confirm that these statements are completely false and inaccurate," a press release said.
Saudi Aramco's interest in bitcoin mining was previously reported by a number of mainstream media outlets. They all referred to an interview with Brazilian miner Ray Nasser, who said the company was allegedly in talks about the possibility of using surplus gas from oil production to mine digital assets.
Recall that Saudi Aramco, the world's largest company in terms of daily oil production, is actively supporting blockchain technology.
In 2019, it invested $6m in oil and gas industry smart contract developer Data Gumbo, and in 2020 it invested $5m in blockchain platform Vakt.
In March 2021, the company rolled out an enterprise blockchain platform in partnership with IBM.
In July, Saudi Aramco suffered an attack by hackers who stole 1TB of confidential data. The data was put up for sale on the darknet for the cryptocurrency Monero.
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