Bitcoin mining has made a lake warm like a hot spring

The Seneca Lake in northern New York has become so warm like a hot spring due to the heat from a nearby bitcoin mining firm Greenidge Generation, NBC reported on Monday. Bitcoin mining involves solving complex math problems. Therefore, cryptocurrency mining firms use sophisticated computers for a long time, using a lot of electricity. Experts estimate that the energy used for bitcoin mining around the world exceeds the annual electricity consumption in Chile.

Greenidge operates about 8,000 computers 24/7, consuming an extremely large amount of energy. The bitcoin mining plant is built on the site of a coal power plant. Private equity firm Atlas, which owns Greenidge, bought the disused coal power plant in 2014 and Greenidge has been using the plant to mine bitcoin since 2019.

Greenidge mined 1,186 bitcoins at a cost of about $2,869 per bitcoin for a year from last March to February this year. Bitcoins mined this way are traded at around $34,000 each, 12 times the money required to mine a bitcoin. Greenidge announced plans to expand its operations by adding 10,000 more computers and to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) within this year.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com