Where on earth are the biggest Bitcoin farms?

While some cryptocurrencies are trying to move away from the mining of tokens, crypto-mining is still a massive part of cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology. Because it is such an integral part of the bigger currencies like Bitcoin, coin mining itself has become an industry and there are massive rigs set up across the globe with a sole focus on working on getting tokens.

Setting up a farm might sound deliciously inviting owing to the wealth of Bitcoin it seems to offer, but it is not as easy as it might seem. Owners need to bear in mind the size, equipment costs, operation costs and power usage before even considering starting up a rig. The equipment itself is worth a pretty penny, and the electricity costs sky-rockets pretty quickly owing to the amount of energy consumed by the machines and then the cooling that the equipment needs in order for it not to overheat and blow out.

It’s not an easy task by any means, but when it is done correctly, it can yield some exceptionally delightful rewards.

In this, we will be exploring where the biggest mining farms that have cropped up are, and what they are capable of doing.

Moscow, Russia

Approximately 600 Bitcoins (BTC)are mined on a monthly basis at farms based in Russia, making it one of the most powerful countries in the mining industry. It also has some of the largest mining set-ups and sees approximately 20 BTC come in per day.

Owing to certain issues that might arise with regulations and securities, mining owners are not quick to disclose the names or exact locations of their rigs, and so we can only suggest that the country’s largest farm is somewhere near Moscow.

This particular set up performs at a massive hash rate of around 38 PH per second – something possible since it is believed to use around 3000 Antminer S9 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners to mine. The capacity of the farm is around 4,5000 kilowatts per hour and would have a resultant huge electricity bill of ₽6.5 million Rubles (which translates to approximately $103424.29 USD at the time of writing).

Linthal, Switzerland

Unlike the farm in Moscow, the Swiss farm’s owner is known and open with the way in which his rig operates. Guido Rudolphi built his Linthal-based farm in 2016 after moving his set-up from Zurich when he realized that the costs were too high to operate the rig efficiently and he chose the small European village owing to its reasonable electricity costs.

His farm is set up in what was once the building of a factory and has become the largest mining farm in Switzerland. Rudolphi still needs to resolve the problem of cooling processors but is optimistic that it is worth mining the Bitcoin despite any current mining issues.

Dalian, China

The mining farm which is based in this Asian city sees approximately 750 BTC mined every month and has a massive hash rate of 360000 TH which makes up 3% of the entire Bitcoin network.

Mining in China has been made fairly popular owing to ASIC miners which are produced in the country – making the equipment cheaper and also much, much more convenient in terms of delivery. The country is also attractive for mining because it has reasonable electricity prices and the government not only allows the mining but encourages it by reducing electricity charges for the energy-hungry farms.

Owing to the appealing factors, Dalian has become a cryptocurrency mining town and is easily the hub of the mining industry in China, boasting a three-story rig with specially made equipment to optimize processing.

Reykjavik, Iceland

One particular farm in Iceland stands out as one of the world’s largest. Dubbed “Genesis Mining”, this company now has farms located across Iceland and Canada – two of the coldest countries to aid with the heat energy released by the mining process – after relocating from Bosnia and China.

Although the information is not disclosed officially, it is hypothesized that the company might consume the most electricity – relative to size and capacity – in the entire Nordic country. With a hash rate of 1000 GH, this does not seem so far-fetched and founders Marco Streng, Jakov Dolic, and Marco Krohn are probably exceptionally pleased to have found two countries like China which offer reasonable electricity rates.

Washington, USA

David Carlson, the founder of the largest Noth American farm GigaWatt, might have chosen an unusual place to launch a mining rig in 2012, but it seems to have worked out for him as he now owns one of the kingpin players in the industry.

Carlson started out as a software specialist and moved into a career in mining in his basement – calling the company MegaBigPower. Changing names and changing locations were apparently a good call for the entrepreneur, who managed to turn GigaWatt into a million-dollar business in only twelve months. Now, it is in an undisclosed location – to avoid the potential wrath of public authority – and is resident in a warehouse used previously for industrial purposes.