As profits are squeezed for miners, the search for cheaper hosting is in full force. Price points that were competitive 6 months ago, are no longer relevant. This has increased the "race to the bottom" in colocation pricing. Everyone has squeezed margins to the breaking point in an effort to get new business.
As expected, entrepreneurs are looking for creative ways to lower pricing. Unfortunately, some of these low cost solutions ignore important issues like cooling and ventilation. I recently visited a large facility and was shocked at the heat generated by just a couple hundred rigs. The building was large with tons of space, but the heat was so bad, no new rigs could be deployed. These entrepreneurs lowered costs by ignoring necessary air conditioning and ventilation upgrades. It became clear to me that between electrical upgrades and ventilation modifications, warehouse space was not the best structural choice for colocation.
I started looking into containers as the primary structure instead of warehouses. I found a container design that made lots of sense to me. The BoxMiner concept has a single row of miners set next to a wall of exhaust fans that exhaust the heat out of the container. At full speed, the 16 large fans can quickly turn over the air in the container. Ventilation on this scale would be impossible in a large warehouse. This design solves the heat problem and significantly lowers the cost structure and overall footprint of the data center. It is a modular, high-performance, highly-ventilated unit. It became clear to me that the container is the best structure, but where could I place it?
Site selection requires the backing of the city and the power company. Although I focused on industrial zoning, the initial conversations I had with city planners were not promising. Planners will understandably prefer permanent structures over modular structures or containers. Additionally, every site I found required significant upgrades to the electrical infrastructure to get the power I needed.
I read about the sale of a closed paper mill and I found this to be a recurring theme all over the country. The paper companies were among the largest power consumers and the closed paper mill sites are loaded with valuable electrical infrastructure and transmission lines already in place. The closed paper mill seemed to be coming into focus as the perfect site to set a container or two...or maybe a couple hundred.
While researching paper mill buyers, I met a guy who not only owned paper mills but also held a firm belief in the future of Bitcoin. We discussed the viability of a container mining campus, then spent months making it a reality. He called it an Industrial Evolution, built on the aging infrastructure of the Industrial Revolution. We got this vision off the ground last year and we are adding containers and capacity as needed. Whether it is an Evolution or a Revolution, the crypto mining campus is here and I believe it is the future of mining.
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www.BoxMiner.io