The energy used to mine bitcoin has long caused debate over whether it’s a wasteful process. As the arguments have rumbled on, some people have been focused on mining coins with renewable energy. On May 29, Christian Ander, the founder of Stockholm’s Btcx exchange, explained how instead of selling surplus solar energy, he’s been using it to mine bitcoin and making 10X the money he would selling the electricity to the grid.
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Choosing to Mine Bitcoin Over Selling Power to the Grid
Mining cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH) and bitcoin core (BTC) utilizes electricity in order to power the ASIC machines that profit from mining coins. Over the last few years, as digital assets have grown more popular and the SHA-256 hashrate (the BTC and BCH consensus algorithm) has climbed to all-time highs, people have complained that the amount of energy used to mine is excessive. However, while some people spend a lot of time debating whether or not mining is using too much energy, there are lots of miners using a variety of renewable energy methods like wind power, hydropower, and solar. A great example of this can be seen in Christian Ander’s explanation of how he was making more money using excess solar to mine bitcoin than he was selling the energy to the power station.
“Time to start your miners tonight almost free energy in Stockholm tomorrow — instead of selling my surplus solar energy, I mine bitcoin,” Ander remarked. “1 kWh = 1,16 Kr($0.12) — That is more than 10 times the money if I would sell it to the grid. Using the most common miners on the
