Bitcoin mining remains an essential and vital part of the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. It provides network security, validates the transactions, and opens new blocks to keep the distributed ledger going.

However, there are also concerns, both internally and eternally, about Bitcoin mining which make it a precarious sector. Firstly, on the external side of things, people are concerned about Bitcoin’s energy consumption when it comes to mining. The network has been likened to a whole small country for the power it uses.

Another issue is its profitability. Bitcoin mining incentives miners with rewards of BTC for unlocking blocks, but there is a fine line to tread in terms of balancing electricity costs to rewards. This is especially true with the Bitcoin reward halving coming up in May.

To this end, crypto podcaster Marty Bent has suggested a novel solution which may tap into the struggling oil markets. Brent has mentioned that he has been mining Bitcoin with the Great American Mining (GAM) company, using excess gas formed as a byproduct of mining oil to power the rigs.

This solution shows that there is excess, and cheap, energy available in oil production that can help subsidize the currently under pressure oil market as well.

An ‘aha’ moment

The potential for oil drilling companies to mine Bitcoin is mostly untapped, and under-appreciated. It is also a rather easy switch to do which for Brent, he is hopeful many more will realize.

“What we’re trying to do and achieve at Great American Mining is to sort of have these oil and gas companies have the ‘aha’ moment and realize that they should be investing in this and building out a mining infrastructure on their field so that they can be more efficient with their wasted gas… and overall in the long term, help Bitcoin out, help protect Bitcoin, and distribute Bitcoin further from a mining perspective,” he explained in a Podcast.

Supply and demand

Efficiency is the game for both oil and gas companies, and Bitcoin miners, but these two sectors have different needs which are complimentary. Miners need cheap energy, and oil and gas companies need to use up gas byproducts, which makes a perfect storm for mining.

“If designed correctly, containers filled with Bitcoin miners have far superior uptime and are 5 times more profitable — on average — than sending the gas to a pipeline to sell,” Brent added

Bent said there was no need to use warehouses or build steel structures to mine Bitcoin when stacked ordinary shipping containers would do:

“You’re seeing a trend now, where even centralized locations are adopting. Instead of building like a large warehouse and doing all the infrastructure, they’re actually using the container model as the way to build on-site…. a year or so ago, that wasn’t the case at all. And now you’re seeing very, very large places, you know, stack 40, 50, 60 containers… it’s just cheaper to do it that way.”