Alexander Petersons, crypto-enthusiast and a product director of cloud mining service Hashtoro.com, shares insights into how to make crypto mining not only more environmentally-friendly, but also less expensive.
Cryptocoin industry is growing at the speed of light. The promise of high income makes more crypto enthusiasts try mining in the cloud or create their own data centers. Cloud based mining has been especially popular lately, as it eliminates the need to buy and maintain expensive hardware, lowering the entry bar for new miners.
Mining algorithms, though, require a lot of processing power, and it takes a lot of energy to power and cool the equipment. According to the article by financial economist and blockchain specialist Alex de Vries, posted earlier this year, the Bitcoin network alone currently consumes roughly 2.55 gigawatts – comparable to the total of Ireland, which is 3.1 gigawatts. As the difficulty of hash calculations increases, this number will grow.
In order to increase their income, miners do their best to make the process more efficient. They improve algorithms, implement ASIC chips for faster calculations and base equipment in countries with cheaper electricity.
In the profit fever, many miss an important issue: the global ecological damage such a massive energy consumption causes. In recent decades, the world community has been seriously concerned about the ecology problems. Now the recent crypto hype has put us at further risk. How can we deal with this issue?
Clean Energy, Smart Mining
The first step would be taking advantage of the local climate to reduce electricity consumption. Many data centers, crypto or not, have already done it. A good example is basing the equipment in colder regions – as Facebook did with their data center in Luleå, Sweden, where cold Arctic air is used to cool down the servers.
Nowadays a growing number of mining services go further and consider fully switching to sources of renewable energy. It can be: solar, wind, hydropower, biomass or geothermal energy.
These are just a few of the clean energy sources. Today, many developed countries are in the process of switching to using renewables instead of fossil fuel. They are not only environmentally-friendly – in many cases, they are also cheaper. As a result, new projects that take benefit of clean energy are emerging all over the world.
We also chose renewable energy for powering our project. Hashtoro.com is a cloud service for mining the world’s most widespread cryptocurrencies. We have placed our farms in Finland and Norway. By this moment, Norway has fully switched to renewable energy for electricity production, and Finland is also heading in this direction. We are proud to be one of the most ecological cloud mining providers: Hashtoro.com entirely works on renewable energy. The excess hot air generated by the miners is also put to use: it warms the water for the local community heating system.
Most Profitable Cloud Mining? Green is Also the Answer
Experts fear that in the near future the cost of crypto mining could become too high, up to the point when it is not worth a try. There’s an extra benefit of using clean energy – mining becomes less expensive, and thus more accessible.
In the case of Hashtoro.com, renewables allowed us to cut prices and offer our clients a chance to start bitcoin, litecoin or ethereum mining with a low budget.
The blockchain is a cutting-edge technology that will enter many fields in the nearest future. It will help us build new elegant structures, and improve existing ones. Mining services, which take a big part in developing these technologies, should aim for responsible mining and try to minimize the negative impact on the environment. Switching to clean energy is a promising way to solve this problem. More profit, less carbon footprint: it’s a win-win situation.
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