BITMAIN CASE STUDY

The energy efficiency of Bitcoin mining is significantly worse than initially anticipated, and the associated carbon footprint is worrisome. One recent example of large-scale cryptocurrency mining is Bitmain. Bitmain’s mining operation consists of 25,000 units in total, throughout seven buildings onsite that contain 21,000 ASIC Bitcoin rigs, and one building contains 4,000 Litecoin rigs. In total, this produces around $200,000 profit daily, AFTER paying $48,000 for 40MW of five cents per kilowatt-hour coal-powered electricity and 50 salaried employees. Yearly revenues are estimated $73M USD/year at this rate.

SUPERGREEN ENERGY’S MODEL APPLIED: At $2000/kW, an 80MW plant would cost $160M USD. Per a Tier 1 partner agreement, Bitmain pays half at $80M and Supergreen Energy the other half. Per the agreement, 40MW, which is Bitmain’s current usage, would be sold to them at up to 90% discount off wholesale rates to the market for the next 10 years. With current net revenues of approx $73M/year, ROI would be approx 13.5 months, thus providing for electricity costs to be negligible for the next 9 years; almost FREE.

One of the biggest liabilities of such a large mining operation is heat. As the temperature outside rises, the 5,000 BTU per hour producing mine begins to malfunction at a much higher frequency than typical. To counteract this heat, the hot air is pumped from the facility and the machines themselves are cooled with evaporative coolers. These systems collectively consume about one-fifth of the total power consumption of the mining facility.
The total footprint of the mine is estimated to be around 24-40 tons of CO2 per hour. Assuming an identical energy efficiency, which is quite generous, this means the total energy consumption of the Bitcoin network processes about 200 tons of CO2 per hour. However, this footprint could be significantly reduced if the source of energy is substituted for Renewable Energy.

The other upside to conversion to Supergreen Energy is the massive reduction in carbon footprint. Bitmain’s current footprint from dirty electric use is approx 200 tons of CO2 per hour! This footprint could be significantly reduced since our efficiency rating to produce is up to 99%. WIN-WIN for the environment and the bottom line.

Digiconomist estimates global revenues from crypto-mining to be over $26 Billion just for Bitcoin and Ethereum.