A cryptocurrency mining facility, or bitcoin mining facility, is essentially a data center that is built for a specialized purpose: to house cryptocurrency miners.
These facilities are designed to provide a reliable and secure environment for mining computers (miners). The facilities are equipped to channel large amounts of power to ensure a smooth operation and effectively protect these computers inside from external elements while dealing with their primary waste products–heat and noise.
They can be based in old industrial warehouses, shipping containers, purpose-built facilities, and even co-locate on oil wells and landfills to mitigate vented methane from the atmosphere.
But what do they all have in common?
A cryptocurrency mining facility consists of a few major components, each one of them playing a crucial role in the process. Let’s take a walkthrough and learn more about them.
These facilities have access to a high voltage transmission line, major substation, or similar large carrier and transformer of power distribution capacity nearby to ensure efficient power transmission.
Also, they are equipped with special transformers that output data-center-specific voltages for the optimal running of the computers. This is a different voltage than the one that exists in standard commercial or industrial buildings and is meant to optimize the performance of cryptocurrency mining rigs.
These networks can be large electrical switching equipment as well as a main distribution panel in a warehouse, a network of retrofitted modular shipping container-type data centers, or a custom solution.
Power must be brought effectively from the distribution system into each individual mining computer in a safe and effective way that minimizes the heat profile and power losses through connections and transformations.
Each miner is typically protected on an individual circuit by a single breaker for additional safety!
These structures are designed to keep miners organized. They are purpose-built to fit as many miners as possible into the space allocated for them while effectively expelling heat.
Their materials should be non-combustible and sturdy, as a standard mining computer is about 35 pounds. So, a rack of hundreds must be well supported and laid out for the best overall thermal performance.
Last but not least, the cryptocurrency mining machine itself is what makes a cryptocurrency mining data center exactly that. These specialized machines work to solve complex mathematical puzzles, a process fundamental to verifying transactions and securing the integrity of the blockchain.
A cryptocurrency mining data center is a wonderful thing to behold. Especially when you realize, standing in front of hundreds or thousands of whirring fans, that every watt of electricity running through that site is securing a monetary network for the whole world.
This data center creates the security and decentralization that makes Bitcoin such a compelling investment vehicle and store of value.
A crypto mining data center is usually quite different from a traditional data center built and operated by large tech companies like Google or Facebook. The purpose is more specialized and optimized for different parameters, like energy cost, climate, energy reliability, and heat transfer profile, to name a few.
Miners also require different environments than a standard data center and do not have the same needs as we discussed so far.
Traditional data centers depend on 100% uptime and high bandwidth network connections. At the same time, crypto miners typically need very little data transfer capacity and instead rely more on a low cost of energy, even if it incurs minor interruptions to their uptime.
Crypto mining data centers can be built far more economically than a traditional data center, which may have an average cost of over $9 Million USD per megawatt.
In contrast, most cryptocurrency data centers are less than 1 Million USD per megawatt, and we have built data centers for much lower than even the publicly listed company average due to our expertise in real estate development and data center architecture.
There are many things that traditional data centers spend money on that make no sense for cryptocurrency miners. Still, most developers of data centers that would offer to build a facility for you have no idea about these design differences because this industry is not their primary focus, and they only consult opportunistically.
We genuinely hope that one day you’ll visit one of our data centers, as we have in-person get-togethers for our clients several times per year so we can learn from each other.
There’s so much misunderstanding about what actually goes on in a crypto mining facility, and we enjoy educating our clients on the construction and operational differences between ours and other data centers in the world.
Understanding the nature of these data centers allows you to make a more informed decision when evaluating who to use for your crypto-mining hosting.
You may even decide that building one yourself is a goal of yours. In that case, don’t forget to check out our large mine development consulting packages, where we are happy to assist you at any stage of your data center development!
Bitcoin (BTC) is a relatively new technology unfamiliar to many, which makes this type of “new money” raise questions like what makes Bitcoin valuable and
Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are digital assets stored electronically on a blockchain network, with basically no physical existence. But how can you access and transfer
Mining Technology & Hosting Made Easy.
Based in the U.S.A.