Bitcoin miners in Texas are breaking new ground

Chad Harris, the CEO of Whinstone Inc., which operates North America’s largest bitcoin “mine,” recalls one of the last times Texas’ electric power crisis is now also his problem.

It was in June, and the temperature in the evening had risen to roughly 94 degrees, significantly higher than the state’s average for that time of year.

Texans were cranking up their air conditioning, putting a strain on the state’s grid, which had already failed for days during a cold spell in February, was exhausting.

“We just got a text saying, The power grid needs support. Please curtail now,’ ” Harris said while standing outside the company’s mining center at an old Alcoa aluminum facility about six miles outside this Central Texas town.

Instantly, Whinstone’s system went offline. The tens of thousands of computer servers that spin away generating bitcoin inside three long buildings simply stopped. “With the flip of a switch, we turned this off,” Harris said.

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