Everyone talks about it, but not many people know how to get or use it. The well-known cryptocurrency that attracts people from all over the world hides many secrets and fascinating things.
You're right; we're talking about bitcoin!
A few years ago, if you wanted to mine bitcoin, everything you needed was just a computer connected to the internet. You could let your pc do its thing during the night, and if you got blessed, you woke up with some bitcoins in your pocket. Well, this strategy doesn't cut it anymore since companies are building large bitcoin farms, consisting of thousands of computers mining bitcoin all day long!
I will reveal the top 5 largest bitcoin mines on earth.
In 2018, Russia opened its largest data center called Bitriver in Bratsk. The location for this bitcoin mine was picked very thoughtfully, as it has 2 key factors you need for mining bitcoin; freezing temperature and low electricity prices. The average temperature throughout the year in Bratsk is only 3°F, which definitely helps to cool all of the GPU power needed for the process. Bitriver has roughly 20 bitcoin come in per day, helping Russia be one of the most powerful countries in bitcoin mining.
The size of it just underlines its hash rate of 38 Peta Hashes per second, making the hourly power consumption of this farm around 4,500KW, costing 120,000 dollars per month. The Russian government is so far not very interested in bitcoin mining, in fact, it's illegal to pay with bitcoins there, but Bitriver only provides needed equipment, which makes this business clean.
Trespassing into a crypto mining farm might sound like an exciting trip, but not here, since its 20,000 mining devices are controlled by a team of engineers 24/7, and an armed guard makes regular patrols in the house, so uninvited visitors won't stay for too long.
Even Genesis Mining Technologies considered how to optimize production as much as possible and therefore placed great importance on their buildings' location. I already told you that devices doing the mining can dangerously overheat, and that is exactly why its founders decided to move their farms from Bosnia and China to some of the world's coldest places, Iceland and Canada. I mean imagine trying to cool those machines in a middle of a dessert.
Iceland also offers low electricity prices, which the company takes full advantage of when they use more electricity than all of their homes combined, with electric bills running more than 1 million dollars per month!
Authorities of Genesis are trying to convince critics of large-scale electricity consumption using as many renewable resources as possible. However, energy is not the only inconvenience, as all those important and complicated machines make an incredible noise that could be compared to a jet engine taking off.
Fortunately, the largest mining building globally, known as Enigma, is located in a deserted location near Keflavik Airport, so it won't interrupt anyone's afternoon nap. A vast number of computers are guarded continuously by workers, especially after many robberies where technology for 2 million dollars has disappeared.
Bitfury isn't just one of the biggest Bitcoin mining farms, but also the oldest one, with its history dating back to 2011 when for 10,000 bitcoins, you could get 2 fresh pizzas. The company uses several softwares for bitcoin mining, so it's impossible to calculate its hash rate, however, it is undeniable that it is one of the largest farms in the world. All the company's big operations are controlled from Amsterdam's headquarters by its founder and CEO Valery Vavilov, who seems to know his way around. Bitfury has designed seven generations of its own specialized micro-chips under his leadership, and his net worth was estimated to more than a billion dollars! Unlike others, this one isn't located in one specific country but has its huge facilities and centers in cities like Tokyo, London, Dubai, or Moscow. In 2020, Bitfury was one of many companies that donated some of its GPU-based computing power for coronavirus research.
Two of some of the most powerful and successful bitcoin mining companies in the US, MegaBigPower, and GigaWatt have one special thing in common. Outside of the fact that they were both multimillion-dollar projects, they were both created by one of the most famous bitcoin owners, Dave Carlson. The first one mentioned, MegaBigPower, was a success that was particularly strong in the great boom of bitcoin in 2014, so why not keep going? In 2017, he decided to launch a new venture called GigaWatt, which became one of the biggest bitcoin mining companies this planet has ever seen. The plan of the company was atypical, as its goal was to simplify access to bitcoins this time by enabling investors to buy a stake in the company's services.
GigaWatt has raised over 1 million dollars from undisclosed investors to build out the facilities and offered bitcoins that raised about 22 million dollars in its opening year. This super mine exerted a ridiculous 30 MegaWatt hash rate and incorporated just over 1,700 GPUs.
It has become not only one of the most powerful companies in North America but also worldwide. Everything was all suns and rainbows until the news about bankruptcy started spreading, what definitely scared the hell out of its customers, especially after the overpraised founder silently left the company. Two months after the announced end of this bitcoin giant, the company was still able to continue up until both access and power to the facilities in which GigaWatt operates have been banned.
Unsurprisingly, China leads the world's bitcoin mining and production of video cards for cryptocurrency mining. About 70% of all the mining activity is done here, and 3% of that is mined in one of China's small cities. Mining Farm in Dalian, named by its location, is the most profitable farm globally, with 4,050 Bitcoins mined per month, which is currently about 150 million dollars, but might be wortha million more or less in a minute. This city is a special place in the Bitcoin mining industry because its environment, air quality, and conditions are relatively better than in other Chinese cities. Farm owners in China have one big advantage over the rest of the world.
What is it, you ask? Well, the Chinese government not only allows mining but also encourages it by reducing electricity charges for the energy-hungry farms, and the delivery of equipment is cheap or even absolutely free! We can't argue it might be a big help, but the company still pays around 1,170,000 dollars a month just for the electricity. At its best, the company could mine about 100 bitcoins a day thanks to the computing power of 360,000 Tera hashes. The entrepreneurs, however, found it difficult to sustain, so the real number varies every day.
Bitcoin may become a substitute for classic money in the future, and China undoubtedly wants to be part of it.
