The big picture: A unique mining operation in New York State consumes around 15 megawatts of the 106 megawatts the power plant produces. Even once the bitcoin halving takes place in May, cutting the block mining reward down to just 6.25 BTC, the undertaking should still be a success.
A surefire way to ratchet up profit in the business world is to cut out the middleman, the intermediary between two parties that inevitably ends up with a slice of the pie for their contribution. In cryptocurrency mining, that middleman is often the utility company that supplies the electricity to power mining rigs.
To skirt this expense, one power plant in New York State has set up its own large-scale mining operation that utilizes electricity produced by the facility at cost.
The Greenidge Generation plant near Dresden, New York, has installed nearly 7,000 mining machines as part of an extensive $65 million renovation. The farm can collectively generate around 5.5 bitcoins per day. Given current values, that equates to more than $50,000 in crypto per day.
Greenidge CFO Tim Rainey told Bloomberg that they are in a favorable market position regardless of how the halving materializes. "Due to our unique position as a co-generation facility, we are able to make money in down markets so that we're available to catch the upside of volatile price swings," he added.
It's unclear if the plant will hold on to its crypto haul or convert it to fiat at regular intervals to help recoup some of the investment.
Masthead credit: Bitcoin by Julia Tsokur