Bitmain Should Know Everything Is Bigger In Texas, As A New 1 Gigawatt BTC Mine Breaks Ground

Competition is ever-present in the cryptocurrency industry, and Bitmain clearly wants to stay ahead. The platform recently launched a bitcoin mine in Texas, located at a former Alcoa plant, but it, unfortunately, isn’t getting an award for the “world’s largest” anytime soon.

Another project recently launched this month, positioning itself ahead of Bitmain’s mine, aiming to start at 300 megawatts, pushing to a single gigawatt by the end of 2020. Bitmain’s mine, on the other hand, is only projected to reach 300 megawatts at its largest phase of development.

The data center developer, Whinstone US, already owns a mine for Bitcoin, located in Louisiana, and it has been building additional locations in the Netherlands and Sweden. Whinstone US has also collaborated with GMO Internet, a Japanese spin on the GoDaddy website, to put together the Rockdale project.

In mid-November, just after the ground-breaking, the Whinstone US company was acquired by Northern Bitcoin in an agreement, the latter of which is in charge of a Bitcoin mine in Norway. This mine runs on renewable resources. The deal states that a total of 3,720,750 new shares will be issued by Northern Bitcoin to the shareholders at Whinstone US, according to comments by the head of communications at Northern Bitcoin. Just after, on Wednesday this week, the value of the Northern Bitcoin shares leaped by 42%, rising to €23.60, which means that the company is now worth €180 million.

The construction and furnishing of the data center will end up costing $150 million, based on the projection by Whinstone. Throughout 2020, the mine will end up reaching its full capacity, reaching the full 1 gigawatt by the fourth quarter of the year.

Interestingly, the two mining projects host their facilities in real estate that is owned by Alcoa, which purchased a 33,000-acre space in the 1950s. Now, the area is more commonly known as Sandow Lakes Ranch, which has become an industrial hub.

Northern Bitcoin has already signed on two clients as their first entities involved, declining to name exactly who the clients are. Still, the company stated that these first patrons “will use a significant portion of the capacity for Bitcoin mining.”

Aroosh Thillainathan, the co-founder of Whinstone US, released a joint statement on the merger, adding that this new arrangement may “shape the future course of the global mining industry.” Mathis Schultz, the CEO of Northern Bitcoin AG, stated that the merger will push the firm to the top at a rapid pace.

Four months ago, a possible merger with Hydro66 Holdings Corp. fell through. The Swedish data center builder ultimately completed a round of fundraising for their own capital, leading them to back out.