Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customise your settings, hit “Customise Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences

  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.
Sign in

Chinese Bitcoin farms: From scuzzy to sci-fi

Roaring fans to liquid baths, China's cryptocurrency rigs are serious business

Darren Pauli Tue 12 Aug 2014 // 07:02 UTC

Somewhere in very rural northeast China lies a dusty and dirty factory where the deafening roar of machinery leaks from an armada of Bitcoin mining rigs.

Inside a secret north china bitcoin mine. Copyright Jacob Smith (Bitsmith) @ The Coinsman - used with permission

Inside the secret north China Bitcoin mine. Copyright Jacob Bitsmith of The Coinsman - used with permission

Heat is blasted out of the vents in the crude concrete citadel from dozens of fans that whip up a torrent to cool 2500 Bitcoin rigs slaving away at algorithms to earn their owners the much sought after crypto-currency.

xxx

Liquid cooling in a high tech Bitcoin farm

Jacob Smith (last name given as Bitsmith), the editor of The Coinsman, travelled to the undisclosed location to document life inside one of China's more grimy Bitcoin mining farms.

The facility was life for three full time staff who ate, drank and slept between patrols of the factory floor to ensure the machines kept ticking over. They returned home one day a week.

The noise was deafening: Jason said the sound of the fans could be heard outside the farm and seemed bone-shattering from within.

Electrical bills tipped 400,000 Yuan ($70,000) a month. Hardware obsolescence was rampant with piles of retired Avalon Bitcoin rigs littering the grounds.

"Walking around the warehouse floor, I was struck with a feeling of awe that THIS is what keeps Bitcoin alive," Jason wrote. "That even if someone wanted to bring down Bitcoin, they'd have to outdo these guys and the dozens of other operations like this around the world."

The Chinese factory was a cruder cousin of modern elite operations such as a secret shipping container-sized facility located 13 kilometres outside of Hong Kong.

That small facility, detailed by independent journalist Xiaogang Cao, cooled its 92 blade servers -strong Bitcoin miner fleet not with fans but using silent open bath immersion technology from vendor Allied Control. The kit was required due to 500kW power restrictions on site.

Bitcoin trading in China remains active but has dropped this year after a late 2013 surge of new users interested in the currency, BTC China chief executive Bobby Lee told Reuters.

Lee said 5000 to 10,000 Bitcoins were traded each day on Bitcoin China. ®

27 Comments

Similar topics

Broader topics

Narrower topics

Other stories you might like

Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2022

Your Consent Options Cookies Privacy Ts&Cs