was approximately 52%. Our research and development team has started the feasibility assessment of the use of solar power to support our mining datacenters. We have also spent considerable efforts in minimizing the impact on the local environment. For example, instead of building new plants from the ground, we renovated abandoned or deserted plants on sites when constructing our mining datacenters in Tennessee and Texas. See the section entitled “— Energy” above for more details.
Competition
For our proprietary mining business, we compete with mining operations throughout the world. We compete to solve new blocks on the basis of our total number of mining machines, the degree of mining difficulty and the efficiency of our mining. We also compete to acquire new mining machines, to obtain access to facilities and prime location of mining operations, to electricity, to develop or acquire new technologies and to raise capital.
For our hash rate sharing business line, we compete on both the quantity and the quality of our hash rate supply, which depends on our mining datacenter resources, the total number of our mining machines, our ability to involve third-party hash rate suppliers and our access to technologies to maintain hash rate supply stability. While we face competition from hash rate suppliers like FROGBT, we also seek cooperation with these third-party hash rate suppliers and build synergy-generating relationships by introducing them to our Hash Rate Marketplace and connecting them to our hash rate users. Together with other market players, we make available diverse and quality hash rate products on our Hash Rate Marketplace, facilitate the growth of our user base, and both third-party hash rate suppliers and ourselves can enjoy the faster cash payback enabled by a thriving Hash Rate Marketplace.
For our hosting service, we compete with other hosting operations globally. Our competitiveness depends on our ability to supply hosting space and power, our deployment, management and operation capabilities, the value of our service offering to customers, the availability of mining equipment and technologies, etc. Our innovative computing and hosting service “group-buying” model under Cloud Hosting gives us a clear advantage. We also enjoy the first-mover advantage in mining datacenter deployment and operation as well as mining machine management.
We operate in highly competitive industries for cryptocurrency mining and related services. Our competitors include Argo Blockchain PLC, Bit Digital, Inc., Bitcoin Investment Trust, Bitfarms Technologies Ltd., Blockchain Industries, Inc, Cipher Mining Inc., Coinbase, Inc., Digihost International, Inc., DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc., DPW Holdings, Inc., HashChain Technology, Inc., Hive Blockchain Technologies Inc., Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc., Hut 8 Mining Corp., Layer1 Technologies, Inc., Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc., MGT Capital Investments, Inc., Northern Data AG, Overstock.com Inc., Riot Blockchain, Inc. and TeraWulf Inc. Many of our competitors are well-known worldwide players and we face competitors that are larger than us and have advantages over us in terms of economies of scale and financial and other resources. Some of our competitors may also have stronger brand names, greater access to capital, longer histories, longer relationships with their suppliers or customers and more resources than we do. Furthermore, these competitors may be able to adapt to changes in the industry more promptly and efficiently. As such, we expect that competition in our markets will continue to be intense.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2022, we owned eight registered patents, 10 registered copyrights, 138 registered trademarks and 171 registered domain names. We are also in the process of applying for eight registered patents. The protection of our intellectual property and all corresponding rights throughout the world, including our trademarks, service marks, trade dress, logos, trade names, domain names, goodwill, patents, copyrights, works of authorship (whether or not copyrightable), software and trade secrets, know-how, and proprietary and other confidential information, together with all applications, registrations, renewals, extensions, improvements and counterparts in connection with any of the foregoing, is important to the success of our business. We seek to protect our intellectual property rights by filing applications in various patent, trademark and other government offices, and relying on applicable laws and regulations in the U.S. and internationally, as well as a variety of administrative procedures. We have routinely entered into confidentiality and invention disclosure and assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, and