Bitcoin (BTC) mining and the miners themselves appear to be doing more than just securing the Bitcoin network.
What do a caravan, timber, animal waste, a swimming pool, beef jerky, a high school, and a Guatemalan lake have in common?
They have all been saved by Bitcoin (BTC) mining. From reusing ‘waste’ heat to getting the job done – to getting a cool blast of air to dehydrate meat, to cleaning up lots of pollutants, Bitcoin mining does more than just securing the network.
Here are the highlights of the seven times that Bitcoin mining lent a hand or just made the world a better place in general.
Free Bitcoin Mining Education In Washington
Sustainable Bitcoin mining firm Merkle Standard has taken Bitcoin mining education into its own hands. While working with Bitmain, they recently gave the latest in Bitcoin mining technology to Newport High School, a high school in Washington State.
Also, they donated $10,000 and are promoting education about Bitcoin in the hope that it will, “plant a seed that encourages lifelong interest in blockchain and digital mining.”
Together with the check, Merkle Standard’s CEO, Ruslan Zinurov, said that they will also invite students to their “data center to check on their machine that is hashing to their school’s wallet.”
“It is our top priority to get the community excited about Bitcoin and we can’t think of a better way to do this than to educate the local students.”
Adam Delderfield, business development manager at Bitmain, which is the holding firm for the Antminer Bitcoin miners, said:
“Digital currency mining proceeds from this gift will go directly to education. Bitcoin mining and proof-of-work represent an exciting new industry that opens up numerous new opportunities.”
Bitcoin Miner Beef Jerky Prepared By The Business Cat Chef
Bitcoiner Business Cat wishes to remain anonymous. They use the heat vented by Bitcoin mining to dry our meat to be made into beef jerky. They stated:
“Bitcoin miners have one hell of an excess supply of dry, heated air, so it makes sense to funnel that heat over strips of beef to make jerky.”
Good temps for jerky so far #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/0WPnTuNwnF
— ₿usiness Cat (@_business_cat) April 4, 2022
Just like the Merkle Standard, for the Business Cat, the jerky cooking process is not about making money:
“My normal food dehydrator uses much less energy than an S9, but hashpower dried jerky just tastes better.”
They added:
“The support of the plebs on Bitcoin Twitter persuaded us to try out the idea. Most of us [Bitcoin plebs] are natural loners, so a few words of praise or support from others on the path goes a long way.”
Notably, the Bitcoin community is majorly supportive of ideas that promote the Bitcoin philosophy and Bitcoin-only ideas, from a Bitcoin lake project in Guatemala to a Bitcoin hostel in Portugal.
Business Cat is now delighted with their experience and suggests that others take up home mining. They integrated life advice with Bitcoin mining advice explaining:
“Should you mine Bitcoin at home? Yes. Should you learn to be a better chef? Also yes.”
Bitcoin Heats Swimming Pool
Jonathan Yuan, a Bitcoin enthusiast, discovered a cheaper, quicker, and highly stable way of heating his swimming pool in Minnesota, all thanks to the process of Bitcoin mining.
Thanks to the immersion heating process, Bitcoin now powers up his pool. Although Yuan does not care for swimming, his children are happy to swim in the pool as he secures the Bitcoin network.
Yuan said that the entire experiment went so swimmingly that he is now planning on heating the entire house.
Bitcoin Miner Replaces Propane Gas Tank Heater
Michael Schmid is a traveled and experienced savvy Bitcoiner. When his caravan’s propane gas heater broke down, he refitted the vehicle to get warned by the ‘waste’ heat from an S9 Bitcoin miner.
Schmid told reporters that he saves:
“Around 50% of the propane costs, which is around $2.7 per day. Now the fun part, the miner produces around 0.00006259 BTC per day (with the current difficulty and 13 TH/s) at the current price of 38 thousand. This is $2.40 per day, so we technically heat the airstream for free.”
Furthermore, a kick in the teeth to the anti-Bitcoin environmentalists – heating the Schmid family airstream with Bitcoin instead of propane gas is better for the planet.
“Our Airstream has solar panels on top of it that can generate up to 400W of energy, so technically of the 1400W that the miner uses, 400W of them are self-generated and fully renewable.”
Bitcoin Miner Waste Heat Dries Out Timber
Kryptovault is a Norwegian Bitcoin mining firm with the greenest credentials in any sector. Powered entirely by hydropower, the energy it utilizes resolves valid blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain and the heat generated by the miners blows over damp logs from a local timber mill.
In a video that was made by the firm, Sveni Bjerke, CEO of local firewood firm Varma, which receives the miner-dried logs, insists that they are just using excess heat from the data center.
The environmental success of the project has spurred more partnerships. The CEO of KryptoVault, Kjetil Hove Pettersen, told reporters that drying out seaweed for local firms is coming soon, and they are “constantly looking for new ways of utilizing our waste heat.”
Pettersen explained:
“Approximately 99% of our electric energy turns into thermal energy. As we know, energy is never truly lost, it only changes form. So this is a way for us to utilize this energy twice and support other local industries in the process. I can’t think of any better industrial use cases than what we are doing.”
Promoting Financial And Energy Autonomy In Guatemala
In south Guatemala, a team of Bitcoin miners donated an S9 to the local mayor and the mining profits are being used to repair a wastewater treatment plant.
Bitcoin mining in the economically poor region has boosted incomes while also improving air quality.
Also, Bill Whittaker, a co-founder of Bitcoin Lake, said that the team is “self-funding carbon-negative Bitcoin mining R&D.” Two high school students, Kate and Madaket, are planning a trip down to:
“LakeBitcoin in early May to deliver the S17s they have been working on.”
The Bitcoin miners they bring will join the first Bitcoin miner, and mostly will be powered by renewable energy – in this case, biogas. Biogas is now growing in popularity as an energy source for Bitcoin mining.
Buy Bitcoin NowBitcoin Mining Helps Grow Flowers And Food
A greenhouse in the Netherlands is heated mainly by Bitcoin miners instead of natural gas. That is according to the founder of Bitcoin Bloem, Bert de Groot.
In partnership with a huge greenhouse, they “placed a Bitcoin miner to reduce the use of natural gas, the prices of which have skyrocketed, and heat the greenhouse with miner heat instead.” De Groot added:
“The family that owns the greenhouse first put electric heaters because of the 6x cost of natural gas, they now get paid for their electricity, which is used for mining, and receive the heat for free.”
It is a win-win situation. After all, who can say no to flowers?
When asked about the electronic waste issues that the mainstream media associates with Bitcoin mining, de Groot stated:
“A miner should last for at least five years. We don’t know of any ASIC (S9) that has been turned to e-waste yet.”
Also, they are fans of delivering beautiful flowers to their local community.
https://twitter.com/BloemBitcoin/status/1511720128567779341
