Miners have earned more from shutting down equipment than from mining cryptocurrencies
The company Riot Blockchain received $9.5 million for returning the excess energy saved to the supplier.
Cryptocurrency mining company Riot Blockchain has decided to shut down several installations to save on power consumption. As a result, it helped the company make money, reports theregister.com.
Texas-based company Riot Blockchain has shut down some equipment to reduce electricity consumption as the price of electricity has risen recently. As a result, ‘surplus’ energy was formed, which was decided to be returned to the supplier company. In this way, crypto miners were able to earn.
The publication reports that Riot Blockchain is one of the largest mining companies in the United States. In the state of Texas, the company has a ‘farm’, the capacity of which is 750 MW because it consists of tens of thousands of Antminer S19 ASICs. Due to the abnormally high temperature recorded in Texas in July 2022, Riot Blockchain partially shut down equipment as the load on the power grid increased as citizens started using air conditioners and fans more often. At the same time, the electricity bill was raised.
The volume of energy consumption was reduced by 11,717 MWh. The company estimated that the saved electricity was enough to supply more than 13,000 households with energy. Since the miners paid for the electricity in advance, they returned the rest to the supplier, but not for free – they sold it, but at a slightly inflated price. As a result of all these actions, cryptocurrency miners earned $9.5 million and were able to compensate for losses from the reduction in bitcoin mining.
The equipment that continued to operate mined 318 bitcoins. In monetary terms, at today’s exchange rate, the company received $7 million. But if $9.5 million is converted into bitcoins, 439 coins will be obtained. The publication writes that in July 2021, Riot Blockchain mined 443 bitcoins at a Texas ‘farm’ worth $15.5 million at the then exchange rate.
