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Bitcoin United States Power The Almighty Buck

More Bitcoin Miners Head to America, Partly for Cheaper Energy (cnbc.com) 70

Posted by EditorDavid from the power-plays dept.
"Well before China decided to kick out all of its bitcoin miners, they were already leaving in droves, and new data from Cambridge University shows they were likely headed to the United States," reports CNBC: The U.S. has fast become the new darling of the bitcoin mining world. It is the second-biggest mining destination on the planet, accounting for nearly 17% of all the world's bitcoin miners as of April 2021. That's a 151% increase from September 2020. "For the last 18 months, we've had a serious growth of mining infrastructure in the U.S.," said Darin Feinstein, founder of Blockcap and Core Scientific. "We've noticed a massive uptick in mining operations looking to relocate to North America, mostly in the U.S."

This dataset doesn't include the mass mining exodus out of China, which led to half the world's miners dropping offline, and experts tell CNBC that the U.S. share of the mining market is likely even bigger than the numbers indicate... "500,000 formerly Chinese miner rigs are looking for homes in the U.S," said Marathon Digital's Fred Thiel. "If they are deployed, it would mean North America would have closer to 40% of global hashrate by the end of 2022."

America's rising dominance is a simple case of luck meeting preparation. The U.S. has quietly been building up its hosting capacity for years... It also helps that the U.S. is also home to some of the cheapest sources of energy on the planet, many of which tend to be renewable. Because miners at scale compete in a low-margin industry, where their only variable cost is typically energy, they are incentivized to migrate to the world's cheapest sources of power.

Thiel expects most new miners relocating to North America to be powered by renewables, or gas that is offset by renewable energy credits. While Castle Island Ventures founding partner, Nic Carter, points out that U.S. mining isn't wholly renewable, he does say that miners here are much better about selecting renewables and buying offsets. "The migration is definitely a net positive overall," he said. "Hashrate moving to the U.S., Canada, and Russia will mean much lower carbon intensity."
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More Bitcoin Miners Head to America, Partly for Cheaper Energy More

More Bitcoin Miners Head to America, Partly for Cheaper Energy

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  • Life changing. Probably why the site still holds a special place in my heart.

    • especially to those that bought high and now are getting wiped out.

      A gaming/gambling token like bitcoin only works with fresh influx of suckers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rednip ( 186217 )

      Wish I could say the same, about life changing (choices, right?). I do remember reading about generating a couple of coins a day, and thinking 'is that all?' although I might be totally off. I do think I saw a few discussions about early versions around here, but never ran the screen saver, instead I did SETI.

  • For Pete's sake send them packing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @10:53AM (#61594417)
    They'll drive up the cost of electricity and water for all of us. While making a tidy profit for themselves. They don't produce anything useful they just consume. They're parasites. You don't even get freedom from them. Crypto coins are dominated by a few big players, and they're too unstable to use for any purchase that isn't dodgy as hell. There's no point in buying marijuana with it and all but five states, and if you're buying hard drugs you've got bigger problems.

    Just ban them. It's okay to decide what businesses are and are not beneficial to your community. Do it with zoning laws like we normally do. I'll get ready for 20 or 30 cents a kilowatt hour electricity and triple your water bill because they're going to use the water that you were going to shower with the coil their mining rigs

    • I'll get ready for 20 or 30 cents a kilowatt hour electricity and triple your water bill because they're going to use the water that you were going to shower with the coil their mining rigs

      Most liquid cooled systems I've seen recycle water. I can't imagine an entire datacenter using more water than a hotel swimming pool. If you have the budget you use specialty non-conductive coolant because it won't damage equipment if it leaks. That's what I used for my home system (for gaming, not crypto).

      Can you elaborate on them consuming water? I figured they wouldn't discharge it because having purified and deionized water at a specific pH is huge to keeping the system running longer and minimi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        Probably talking about this [arstechnica.com]. The waste heat could be problematic.

        • Are we calling increased evaporation "wasting water" or is this a different thing I'm ignorant of?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by chill ( 34294 )

            No, sorry. Reading thru the post on wasting water it is clear the poster doesn't know anything about watercooling and was ranting to rant. Bleh.

      • Like this [datacenterdynamics.com] all over lately.

        Data centers want to move to the SW because there aren't any natural disasters to contend with besides heat. But there isn't nearly enough water. They're allowed in anyway because it's easy to grease a few palms.

      • Re:Can you elaborate about the water use? (Score:4, Informative)

        by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @11:47AM (#61594543)

        I can't imagine an entire datacenter using more water than a hotel swimming pool.

        And you would be wrong. A 15 MW data center can use roughly 360,000 gallons of water per day [watercalculator.org]. Whereas, a swimming pool, depending on its size, can have several thousand gallons [backyardcitypools.com].

        You're only talking about one datacenter. Considering how many there are across the country, the totality of their water use far exceeds that of swimming pools. For example, in 2019, Google received permission from Arizona to construct a datacenter and be guaranteed 1 million gallons of water per day [bloomberg.com] to cool the datacenter, and up to 4 million per day in hot weather. The first article above said the estimated water usage by data centers by 2020 would be 174 billion gallons. I don't think there are enough swimming pools in the country to equal that amount.

        • last I heard that google one was going to be around 150 jobs, which given those numbers tend to be exaggerated I wouldn't be surprised if the real number was 50 or 60. And that includes low paid janitors and security guards.

          I'm not saying I don't want data centers, I'm saying I don't want them in the drought stricken SW. Either that or Google can bring their own water from the ocean via desalinization and aqueducts. But their CEO wouldn't want to pay the taxes to build that let alone pay for it himself.

        • A 15 MW data center can use roughly 360,000 gallons of water per day.

          You make it sound like that is a lot. It isn't. It is about one acre-foot.

          An acre-foot of water costs a California farmer $70.

        • The university of washington medical center and it's associated data center(s) are allowed to siphon water out of Portage Bay for their oh so 'efficient' cooling needs.
          (That is between Lake Union and Lake Washington.)
          We call this 'green'?
          In comparison, unless you are grandfathered in (and if you're reading this, you aren't) if you have a property on any of the associated lakes you can't even take water from the lake to water your lawn, where the city chlorinated water you are required to use flows right bac

        • I can't imagine an entire datacenter using more water than a hotel swimming pool.

          And you would be wrong. A 15 MW data center can use roughly 360,000 gallons of water per day [watercalculator.org]. Whereas, a swimming pool, depending on its size, can have several thousand gallons [backyardcitypools.com].

          You're only talking about one datacenter. Considering how many there are across the country, the totality of their water use far exceeds that of swimming pools. For example, in 2019, Google received permission from Arizona to construct a datacenter and be guaranteed 1 million gallons of water per day [bloomberg.com] to cool the datacenter, and up to 4 million per day in hot weather. The first article above said the estimated water usage by data centers by 2020 would be 174 billion gallons. I don't think there are enough swimming pools in the country to equal that amount.

          I'm sure there's good math behind it but it seems weird that they're using drinking quality water and evaporative cooling when they could keep the water in a closed loop and use the water to transport the heat elsewhere.

      • The cooling towers are evaporative.

    • They don't produce anything useful they just consume.

      And

      While making a tidy profit for themselves.

      Either they produce something useful, or they don't. Can't have it both ways.

    • How do you ban crypto mining without also banning data centers?

      If I build a general purpose cloud computing data center next to some hydroelectric dam, you know for the low cost and low CO2 energy, then I'm merely meeting a growing demand for cloud computing. I build the computers to customer specs and don't much care what they use the computers for, I just care if they pay the electric bill. Then someone else comes along, asks for computing units decked out with multiple GPUs. Maybe this person is crypt

    • Where does the water come in? I get electricity and cooling. But water? Your in Cali, isnt your rice crops a great example of wrong crop for the climate/environment its trying to grow? Im with you on banning BTC but lost on the water abuse part. Esp compared to some of the Ag that is not arid friendly. Parts of cali are considered desert climate. Water conservation was a thing even in the 80s when I was stationed there.
    • How do they make a tidy profit without producing anything of value? Sounds quite valuable to me, but this is olddot, where the dogs canâ(TM)t learn new tricks.

    • They'll drive up the cost of electricity and water for all of us.

      What's geekmux's opinion on this? He claims this is a better situation than having people in the future tutting at others about their resource waste.

  • Ban the cancer-carriers and their resouce-wasting ways from the U.S.
    Also ban cryptocurrency itself as well. The only regular use it has is fueling criminal activity, especially ransomware.
    Or is my species so gods-be-damned dumb that they just can't stop shooting themselves in the foot with things like this?
    • You can't ban something that doesn't really "exist".

      Banning cryptocurrencies, which by the way is the subproduct of a technology (blockchain), implies admitting their existence :)

  • Is this good or bad for the US? (Score:3)

    by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @11:02AM (#61594443)
    Assuming we aren't crypto fans. Is having a bunch of people come here to buy electricity a good thing or a bad thing? I don't really know, was wondering if anyone had insight.

    I imagine the demand will spur/fund investments in renewable energy, particularly in blue states. I don't think you can have too much investment in renewable energy. There was a slashdot article years ago about a town in Germany that produced too much power and had to pay people to get it off the grid. I'd love to see that here...not so much paying people to take power off the grid, but more drastically reduced cost of energy due to investments in renewable. I'd love to see the surplus energy put to new industrial processes...with nearly free electricity, I imagine the cost of most metals could go down...imagine aluminum frame cars for cheaper than steel ones, as an example, what about affordable titanium?...I am sure there are many materials and goods that are limited in use by the cost of electricity. It could also allow things like indoor farming to extend growing seasons in colder climates or simply cheaper server costs.

    So let's say what happens in China happens in the USA. We become a crypto mining destination for 5 years and then the next administration bans it. Will the crypto mining fund infrastructure improvements and be a net positive, long term?...or just pollute the local area and be a net negative?...or perhaps other factors?

    • Re:Is this good or bad for the US? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @11:17AM (#61594485) Homepage
      Crypto mining (otherwise known as heating the environment along with all that fuel use) will never be a net win. There is already an old coal plant repurposed and put back into use just for producing electricity for mining. I honestly don't understand how they were allowed to do that even using natural gas unless some palms were greased under the table.

      The entire power grid is shared (well, except Texas - see how that's working out), so what will happen is that miners will claim they are using the renewable energy production to hide the fact more fossil fuel plants will need to keep running just because the miners increase overall demand. Green/White washing their true harm to the overall drive to clean electricity.

      I'm in the ban them camp.

      • I honestly don't understand how they were allowed to do that even using natural gas unless some palms were greased under the table.

        I imagine part or all of the trade off is making a high efficiency gas generator run constantly and shed the mining when a local peak in use can use it instead. I think they save about 1/3 of the energy when used for local power generation.

      • I honestly don't understand how they were allowed to do that even using natural gas unless some palms were greased under the table.

        Free market capitalism and the lack of any regulations which charge people for externalities. Introduce a carbon tax to make old power plants unprofitable and this shit goes away.

    • This is good for the USA.

      This will drive more new electrical generation capacity. This will drive more energy efficiency, load shedding programs, and energy storage. One issue is that people building new power plants need to know that the demand will last long term. The large numbers of old nuclear power plants is already setting us up for a lot of production capacity to fall off as nuclear reactors each 60 or 80 years of operation and will simply need to close out of age. Crypto mining is setting us up

    • Energy is more or less a zero sum game. At one time you could literally discuss global economic in terms of barrels of oil. Everything could be quantified in terms relating to barrels of oil. We normally buy our oil from central america, but if unrest shorts production in Venezuela, the global prices of oil coming out of Saudi Arabia are affected. So in these terms, every KW that is pissed away or wasted, is a KW of dirty power needed to supplement even if you started using green energy to power your wastef

      • Last I checked, the global reserve currency is the US Dollar. The Dollar mine is owned by the US government. The value of the Dollar is backed up by the "full faith and credit" of the US Government. You could say that the Dollar *is* the gold. They will accept oil in exchange if you don't have many Dollars.

  • I hope the "Earth first" types jump on this. They've been so effective in screwing up our renewable energy efficiency, that now we have rolling brownout/blackouts, THEY should jump on them for wasting energy.
    • Yes I agree. We spent countless $$ going green but in the last 20yrs I have not seen a renewed coordinated effort on the subject of conservation. In the 70s/80s peer pressure was strong about leaving the lights on when you left the room. Hell there was a schoolhouse rock song about electricity; eee-lec-tricity. (Hope I gave you an ear wig there)
  • Miners operating from the USA are now a bigger target for her, and for pretty much anyone who decries the needless expenditure of electricity. People eking out a living in a nation seen as poor being seen as less offensive to them.
    • Hell im nowhere near a flaming liberal, but as an engineer at heart, I too decry the needless waste of electricity. I get as excited about efficiencies as us nerds did about computer specs in the 90s trying to eek out every overclocked clockcycle we could squeeze out of a system. So If you want libertarian engineer types to side with you, always frame it in terms of efficiency vs waste. Its a much simpler and easier sell. Same with pollution. Im more anti-polution than anti-global-warming simply because pol

  • The US should not be playing the role of housing the criminal organizations that mine this stuff. There is far too much risk that it can be used to fund terrorist organizations or other bad actors to skirt around US sanctions.

  • Well, according to the fact that Bitcoin miners already know how to profit, it's not surprising. Trading cryptocurrency is really profitable, and even many finance companies confirmed that. I'm an investor myself, and I use the BitQS website [bitqs.org] because it's safe and profitable. Also, I’ve met a few amazing people along the way to the crypto world, so that's great too.
  • Well, this is not new for a long time. This has long been known and understood. My brother is very afraid of rising electricity prices, he even started trading. Although I did not understand how this is possible before, if a person does not understand it at all, but he was able to understand how to trade forex online [ironfx.com] and all thanks to the Internet. Everything is possible.

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