The People’s Republic of China has some of the largest Bitcoin mining companies; it is also the largest manufacturer of chips and tools required for mining. This makes China the undisputed lord of the Bitcoin mining industry. An American startup has now taken up the challenge of shifting the mining hub to Texas.
On Tuesday, San Francisco-based Bitcoin mining upstart, Layer1 posted that it received a $50 million stimulus from billionaire Peter Thiel and a few other investors to work on its plan. The firm’s plan includes setting up its own power sub-station and acquiring solar and wind energy generated from these on the plains of West Texas.
Bitcoin mining is generally done in cooler regions as the equipment used to produce a lot of heat; the process also consumes a large amount of electricity. However, Layer1 believes that its cutting-edge cooling technology will make Texas a feasible location in spite of high temperatures in the region. The state also offers lenient regulation and low-cost power.
Co-founder Alex Liegl giving insight into the project said, Layer1’s facility will comprise of huge areas of land that lie 150 miles west of Midland, Texas—“literally in the middle of nowhere”—and will depend on exclusively innovative technology for cooling the chips employed for mining Bitcoin.
Liegl also said that Layer1 aims to become leading Bitcoin miners around the world by regulating all facets of the process—right from the manufacturing of chip to generating electricity to cooling. As per Bitcoin news, in the future, the startup forecasts to use its mining capability as a base for constructing a bigger virtual currency enterprise, which will also contain financial services.