Bitcoin holder Mara Holdings recently acquired a wind farm in Texas to help power a portion of its cryptocurrency operations. The company plans for the renewable energy source to lower its bitcoin production costs with “near zero” energy prices — and help address the massive energy needs of bitcoin mining.
Mara Holdings is the world’s second-largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, as detailed by CoinDesk. According to the Feb. 18 report, MARA Holdings had 45,659 bitcoin (BTC) on its balance sheet — roughly worth a whopping $3.8 billion. These values increased somewhat by mid-March.
The wildly profitable company recently acquired the Hansford County, Texas, wind farm to help power its energy-hungry bitcoin mining operation. As Investopedia explained, bitcoin mining is the process by which cryptocurrency transactions are officially entered into the blockchain ledger. Mining is also the way new bitcoin currency is launched into circulation. But this mining is notorious for requiring massive amounts of energy, often powered by highly polluting dirty fuels.
NerdWallet explained that mining is crucial to the success of bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies. Mining incentivizes users to enter accurate transaction information into the shared ledger that tracks transactions and balances on an underlying blockchain network by offering rewards in the form of bitcoin. Current rewards are 3.125 BTC — or about $260,000 — plus transaction fees.
Mining uses complex cryptography intended to prevent fraud and theft. This is done by powerful single-purpose computers called ASICs, or application-specific integrated circuits, to maximize efficiency. ASICs are often very expensive — and require massive amounts of energy to operate. That’s why most serious bitcoin mining is generally done by professional organizations like Mara rather than tech-savvy individuals.
NerdWallet reported that, as a group, bitcoin miners use more electricity than some entire countries, though with the major miners, a large percentage of that energy is coming through surplus energy or renewable energy, so there isn’t a perfect comparison.
Watch now: How bad is a gas stove for your home’s indoor air quality?
Still, running an energy-hungry data center of ASICs can have a troublesome environmental impact — an impact greatly lessened when using a renewable source rather than a highly polluting dirty fuel.
Recently, there’s been a big push to transition mining operations to cheaper, more renewable energy sources to help reduce reliance on dirty energy. Possible solutions for bitcoin’s energy problem include excess energy deals, solar panels, wave energy, geothermal, and offshore or onshore wind — like that now utilized by Mara.
But Mara isn’t only lowering its reliance on dirty energy with its wind farm acquisition. The company plans to continue using last-generation ASIC mining hardware to power its operations. Without wind farm power, Mara said this hardware would “have otherwise been written off or sold into the secondary market,” replaced by more energy-efficient models. With wind power, last-generation ASICs can keep up with newer models, curbing electronic waste.
All of that makes the plan a smart one, with the only real downside being that this wind farm purchased in Texas would otherwise be powering the grid. Bitcoin mining companies building their own new renewable infrastructure, or making joint investments with grid operators to do so, will be even better to ensure the percentages of clean energy continue to rise, though it’s understandable that the company would want to put its plan into motion as soon as possible.
Mara has faced complaints in the state too, though, for noise pollution from one of its other mining centers, including reports of vertigo and hearing loss.
In a press release, the company said it hopes the wind farm acquisition and reuse of otherwise dated ASICs demonstrates Mara’s “commitment to environmental stewardship.”
“With this added renewable energy asset, MARA now owns and operates 136 megawatts of generating capacity,” Mara CEO Fred Thiel said in the release. For comparison, one megawatt of commercial wind power would be enough to power close to 350 American homes, based on an estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Thiel added: “This acquisition not only extends the economic life of our ASIC miners, but also drives reduction in operational costs, bringing us closer to achieving near net-zero operating costs.”
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
