Dalad Banner may be far away from Beijing’s internet start-up scene and southern China’s gadget hub. Still, many of the workers and surrounding residents see a digital opportunity for Dalad Banner and the rest of their part of Inner Mongolia, an area famous in China for half-finished factories and towns so empty that they are sometimes called ghost cities.

“Now the mine has about 50 employees,” said Wang Wei, the manager of Bitmain China’s Dalad Banner facility, using one of several metaphors for the work being done there. “I feel in the future it might bring hundreds or even thousands of jobs, like the big factories.”

Mr. Wang, a 36-year-old resident and former coal salesman, purchased one Bitcoin about six months ago. It has since more than doubled in value. “I made quite a lot of money,” he said.