Crypto Miners in Iceland Turn to Farms in Search of Cheaper Energy

Iceland has always been famous for its spectacular nature, but the tiny island country with cheap electricity has now become known as a magnet for companies and crypto miners. To address the problem of ever-growing electricity demand from energy-hungry cryptocurrency servers, Krista Hannesdóttir, a mathematics teacher in Iceland, has come up with a solution that should make mining greener and benefit the country’s farmers at the same time, Wired reports.

The current situation

There are over 2,000 digital coins issued by startups and cryptocurrency projects. They are traded on decentralized platforms where each transaction needs to be verified. The process is performed by a network of computers that do complicated mathematical calculations and consume an immense amount of electricity. People who use their computing power to serve the network get rewards in the form of new coins, with the process known as mining.

In its boom days, crypto mining was a very profitable business, but as the value of digital assets dropped, the proceeds fell significantly. Miners were forced to look for a way to improve efficiency, so places like Russia’s Siberia, the Swiss Alps, and Iceland caught their eye.

The attraction of Iceland

A combination of geographical and economic factors makes this North Atlantic island nation an ideal place for cryptocurrency mining.

Iceland has a well-developed infrastructure for generating hydropower energy. The country produces about 80% of its energy in hydroelectric power stations, which is impressive by global standards – in the US, for example, only 6% comes from renewable sources.

“The economics of bitcoin mining mean that most miners need ac…

This article appeared first on Cryptovest

Like this: Like Loading...