Bitcoin Mining Operations Set Up in Washington State
Sunday, May 25, 2014 - 1:00pm PDT by James Brasuell
Energy, Technology, Washington
The computing power required to mine bitcoins has drawn companies to Washington for the state's cheap, hydroelectric generated power.
"Following the lure of cheap electricity, Bitcoin miners and their power-hungry server farms are making out for sleepy little towns in the Pacific Northwest," reports Sarah Zhang.
Although it doesn't have the same environmental impacts as an aggregate mine or, say, fracking, the production of bitcoins still requires the use of natural resources. "Although Bitcoin is a digital currency, mining it still has a gigantic physical footprint. That's because computers 'mine' Bitcoin by solving a cryptographic equation. To mine more Bitcoin, you need more computing power. Or you can just have more computers."
That means electricity, and in Washington that means hydroelectric power. "Last year, Bitcoin miners were sucking up an estimated 1 million kilowatt-hours per day. That's a hefty electric bill right there. But Washington has some of the lowest electricity rates in the country—less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour for industrial customers in certain area. The average U.S. household pays something more like 12 cents a kilowatt-hour."
Full Story: Why Bitcoin Miners Are Moving to Tiny Towns in Washington State
Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 in Gizmodo
Related links:
•Northwest's cheap power drawing bitcoin miners
Tags:
Bitcoin, Mining, Hydroelectric, Server Farms
World’s Largest Bitcoin Mining Operation that is Earning $8 Million a Month
Posted on March 11, 2014 by Justin Soo
World’s Largest Bitcoin Mining Operation that is Earning $8 Million a Month
World's-Largest-Bitcoin-Mining-Operation-that-is-Earning-8-Million-a-Month
The largest Bitcoin mining operation in North America is earning its owner $8 million worth of Bitcoins a month. Dave Carlson is running the Bitcoin mining facility in two warehouses at an undisclosed location in Washington state.
Carlson invited a local Seattle station, KOMO News to take a look inside the mining facility which he said is “the largest mine in North America and most of the rest of the world.”
The whole space is filled with rows and rows of specially designed Bitcoin mining rigs that would do the actual mining. The combined processing power reached one thousand trillion calculations per second or one petahash.
“It is not any different to any gold rush in history and we are absolutely running as fast as we can to grow,” said Carlson. To put it into perspective, the same processing power that these mining rigs are pulling are only crossed on the entire Bitcoin network just about six months ago.
Carlson indicated that the mining operation is using 1.4 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power a town. According to him, the relatively cheap and stable electricity supply in the Washington-state area makes this operation possible.
