The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin
The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin
Bitcoin mines cash in on electricity — by devouring it, selling it, even turning it off — and they cause immense pollution. In many cases, the public pays a price.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-electricity-pollution.html?unlocked_article_code=9jMcYqNNS8leiR763Y-IIqth_sKrcrs4TQ6M6htRRlzyVxpg8m5LbJrU1aeKkwa5jnbyT8DNM1_C_1oAkmH9q_6932Azkf5Lsn7Vpd_0nUTwU5WGul0vSxubbDNF6a1-P6wowoYW3oTeQZHf7NoYAroWYueXbyf-xSK36CZACpk9iqBawe2gMZZfUP13_Xwet8CC7b4T8bl5ABGwE-NOsKaszbhShGiYwzx6RRx0mQz4ueVcSs97UgUdeiiaHne7UClngSn7our8YqxUbdx-YLtyGADO1FBIhPWnAJMNN9k2WxrtZdWkUPmKT4QXNpckoSOOYSqKLDT-05ja8y2KPCCcqibTUMlfJxaVCU989w&smid=tw-share
(Full link to non-paywall article, courtesy of Heather Thomas)
Meanwhile, in the husk of a onetime aluminum smelting plant an hour outside of Austin, row upon row of computers were using enough electricity to power about 6,500 homes as they raced to earn Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The computers were performing trillions of calculations per second, hunting for an elusive combination of numbers that Bitcoin’s algorithm would accept. About every 10 minutes, a computer somewhere guesses correctly and wins a small number of Bitcoins worth, in recent weeks, about $170,000. Anyone can try, but to make a business of it can require as much electricity as a small city.
In Texas, the computers kept running until just after midnight. Then the state’s power grid operator ordered them shut off, under an agreement that allowed it to do so if the system was about to fail. In return, it began paying the Bitcoin company, Bitdeer, an average of $175,000 an hour to keep the computers offline. Over the next four days, Bitdeer would make more than $18 million for not operating, from fees ultimately paid by Texans who had endured the storm.
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