Whereas to the higher Bitcoin tradition, Bitcoin halvings are seen as a celebratory occasion, for miners, issues are typically a tad aggravating. As Bitcoiners all over the world collect to rejoice block 840,000, miners are hunkering down and getting ready for his or her reward for mining blocks to lower by 50%, whereas the price of their operations stays the identical.
With the following bitcoin halving scheduled to happen on April 19, one may think that Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, the most important publicly-traded Bitcoin mining firm on the planet, could be apprehensive. However after sitting down with Thiel simply days earlier than the halving, he doesn’t look like breaking a sweat.
Why’s that?
One of many causes is that Marathon plans to generate different streams of income using the warmth emitted from its bitcoin mining rigs.
“Bitcoin mining in and of itself does one thing very effectively, which is produce warmth,” Thiel advised Bitcoin Journal. “50% of commercial power spend is spent to warmth issues, so think about if you happen to might seize the warmth from Bitcoin miners and Bitcoin miners might receives a commission for that. That might subsidize their value of electrical energy.”
Throughout a hearth chat with Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) on the Bitcoin Coverage Summit, held on April 9, 2024 in Washington, DC, Thiel shared an instance of how Marathon plans to make the most of the warmth its miners produce.
“One of many issues we’re doing in Nebraska truly is we’re beginning to warmth greenhouses and do shrimp farming utilizing the warmth from Bitcoin mining as a byproduct,” Thiel defined to Senator Lummis.
“I feel you’re going to start out seeing this as a means for individuals to develop proteins in areas of the deprived world,” he added.
Using the warmth Marathon’s miners produce is without doubt one of the methods during which Thiel is seeking to change the notion of Bitcoin mining from one thing that’s parasitic to one thing that’s productive.
This dovetails nicely with the truth that Marathon continues to enhance its capability to make use of waste fuel as gasoline for its miners.
Towards the tip of 2023, Marathon launched a pilot mission during which it mined bitcoin with power derived solely with landfill methane, a fuel that’s 80x stronger as a greenhouse fuel than CO2.
The mission was a hit, based on Thiel.
“It was a proof of idea that confirmed that you could possibly efficiently mine bitcoin utilizing landfill methane fuel,” he advised Bitcoin Journal. “Mining on landfills could be very arduous, however we have been capable of show that you could possibly do it fairly efficiently.”
Thiel expanded on these efforts in his dialog with Senator Lummis, tying collectively the concepts that Marathon might produce this warmth it plans to make use of whereas having a optimistic impression on the surroundings.
“You generate power with that by turning it into methane after which changing that into electrical energy and also you create warmth with the electrical energy,” he advised Senator Lummis. “If you happen to can take a waste product, flip it into power and feed warmth again into an industrial course of, you do extra for the surroundings than a whole lot of environmentalists need. And on the identical time, your value to mine bitcoin turns into very small as a result of your power value is low.”
