Mining cryptocurrencies with the power of the River
A cryptocurrency mining organization called DPW Holdings’ is an ultimate crypto Mining subsidiary. The organization will be harnessing power from rivers for the mining of cryptocurrency.
The mining of cryptocurrency is energy intensive, however energy can be harness through just about any energy source to mine cryptocurrency. This includes Solar, Wind, Waste, Geothermal and more. DPW Holdings’ will be using a hydroelectric dam in the Valatie falls of New York, and is set to convert it into a cryptocurrency mining facility. The dam delivers a continuous flow of approximately 1 MW of clean renewable energy, giving the team an expected initiation date of around the Q4 of 2018.
Some have presented their concerns regarding the mining of bitcoin, as they believe that using fossil fuel to mine Bitcoin is quite inefficient, and is not environmentally friendly. This concern comes from the fact that most individuals are not well informed about the effects of mining cryptocurrency. The fact that fossil fuel is mostly used in the mining of bitcoin, is an energy source problem and not a cryptocurrency one. Fossil fuel is the most used on our planet for energy which is damaging to the environment in general and releases CO2 and toxic chemicals. According to a report by Digiconomist, Bitcoin uses the same amount of electricity as entire the Austria, this gives it a release of around 35,000 kilotons of CO2 into the atmosphere on a annual bases. Even though this is likely to be an overestimate of the Bitcoin energy usage.
Energy companies will have the opportunity of mining any cryptocurrency
Unsurprisingly, there was also no mention of the global benefits to society through this activity, such as the superiority of cryptocurrencies and the banking system. Immutability, global payments, transparency, and decentralization is something that is currently not present in our financial system.
Hydroelectricity is a source of renewable energy and is environmentally friendly, which make this new cryptocurrency mining operation at Valatie Falls great for cryptocurrency mining. Cryptocurrency mining is also set to take off in Iceland using geothermal energy and in China through the use of hydroelectricity, this means lower power cost. We are just in the beginning phase of this extraordinarily disruptive technology.
Additionally, DPW Holdings will be installing Anteater mining rigs produced by Coolisys which are a lot more energy efficient. The Anteater mining rig uses a 10nm chip that replaces the standard 16nm chips, giving each rig a hash rate of 17.2 TH/s leaving energy consumption at 1,430 W.
Valatie Falls should issue the energy capacity for approximately 700 Anteater mining rigs, this gives a hash rate of about 12 Petahash/s. The Bitcoin network currently has a hash rate of 62,000 Petahashes/s. Which makes it still profitable even without transaction fees and renewable energy for now. Chips will become smaller over time causing a decrease in energy consumption and making the activity of mining available to smaller devices like smartphones.
What do you think about the energy usage of cryptocurrency mining? Please feel free to leave a comment below.
