Smaller margins drive Bitcoin miners towards green energy – Capital Brief

In September, Marathon set up a small data center in an unusual place: a landfill. The world’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin miner wanted to see if it could use methane produced by garbage to power computers mining the cryptocurrency.

The company considers the pilot project a success. Over a 240-day period, the operation converted 16.1 million cubic feet of methane into electricity that powered a Bitcoin mine, according to a report released earlier this month.

The company promotes this as an environmental benefit – proof that methane can be captured and used rather than released into the atmosphere. If anything, it’s a happy coincidence. The main concern for miners like Marathon is cost efficiency. The report found that the electricity generated was approximately 60% cheaper than the industry average.

Marathon’s adventure in the scrapyard illustrates the change taking place in the entire cryptocurrency mining industry. Faced with tighter margins, miners are increasingly looking for cheaper sources of electricity. The most economical option is renewable energy surplus, where solar, wind and hydro farms produce more than the grid can absorb. Utilities, often lacking enough batteries, sometimes pay miners to extract excess energy. More operations, including in Australia Irenebenefit from off-grid energy.

Bitcoin mining is inherently energy-intensive and involves warehouses of powerful computers racing to solve complex mathematical puzzles. Still, Bitcoin’s carbon emissions are down about 20% from their April 2021 peak, according to analyst data. Will Woo. This is despite the fact that hashrate, which measures the total computing power used by miners on the network, has increased by almost 400% since then.