When Bitcoin (BITCOMP) first came out to the public in 2008, created by Satoshi Nakamoto, a mysterious person or group of people who were most-certainly using this name as a pseudonym, nearly no one - not even the most tech-savvy and in-the-know guys were aware of what was in the making.
Since its creation, Bitcoin has gone through thousands of events and ups and downs, ranging from it reaching the magnificent heights of almost $20,000 per coin to hitting the rock bottom. However, it's clear that though not as fast as in the past, it’s still gaining in popularity, and more and more people are interested in having their piece of the crypto pie.
Nowadays, it’s relatively easy and accessible for an average person to go and buy Bitcoin. All that’s required is to choose a crypto exchange, set up an account and go through the verification process, and feel free to purchase away. It’s very fast, convenient and simple for all people.
This was definitely not the case during Bitcoin and crypto’s beginning stages. The handful of people who actually had the ability and interest to purchase Bitcoin were the ones who had the necessary technical sophistication and determination to get involved with crypto mining, which was uncommon, to say the least.
Mining, although now well-mastered and widely spread all over the world, at the time, was largely inaccessible to get into for the general public due to its very nature. Sure, you could argue that the same is the case today too, but nowadays at least it's highly utilized on an industrial and corporate level. In the past, It was mostly reserved to the fintech-savvy people, visionary types, and to us, regular “nerdy” cryptocurrency enthusiasts. With that being said, for those who had the will and ability to get into it, a couple of computer processors is all it took to get started.
Enter the GPUs
By around 2010, the general public got access to the code that would allow the usage of computer GPUs for mining Bitcoin. This was to be a huge milestone.
As Bitcoin and blockchain were being developed further, the need for stronger technology rose up, and GPUs were an ideal fit for the task. GPUs have made mining relatively easier and more doable for the general public and people who were interested in it. The entry process was simplified very much, as anyone with a small starting capital could set it up.
However, this was not to keep up for too long. For one, GPUs became rarer because of increased demand due to crypto mining. This resulted in a very sharp increase in GPU prices, to the point where it caused a lot of issues for gamers and other people who had an interest in GPUs.
For some people, it doesn't always make sense in terms of profitability to set up a mining farm. There are earnings-to-expenditure ratios that need to be met for this endeavor to make sense. It's because of this, that mining is the most profitable on a larger scale. Thus, mining farms were born.
The rise of Mining Farms
The technical advancement of the cryptocurrencies and mining prompted a huge increase in demand for power from the mining process itself. At this point, it wasn’t as easy as just buying a couple of GPUs, putting them on a shelf and leaving it be. The power, electricity and all other associated costs of mining were too much for regular people to handle. At the very least, everything came to a point where mining mostly makes sense on a mass scale, with large systems of mining equipment.
International investors quickly started noticing the potential that these mining operations would offer, and large investments started being made to build these farms. Gigantic-sized mining stations thus started forming, as bigger the farms, bigger the amount of tokens minted.
In fact, many well-known crypto companies today first started off with crypto mining operations as a means of just getting their feet wet in the industry. Most of these companies are now offering services regarding investments such as professional trader services, as well as more technologically advanced offers like the BTC trading robots. In fact, according to Bitcoin Evolution, one of the first companies to offer services like these, it was simply impossible to pitch a trading robot to people in the beginning of the crypto era, because nobody really cared about it. Everybody could easily just set up a mining rig at home and make much more than just buying up BTC and trading it on an exchange or whatever was available at the time.
Today, the size, quality, and sophistication of these farms are way far ahead than anyone could’ve predicted, and the involvement and diversity of investors are quite big. Governments also realized the benefits that these technologies could bring and started heavily subsidizing these farms, as we’ll learn below. More and more countries are starting to see the potential of these mass-scale mining operations, and are actively making efforts towards becoming the biggest fish. However, some countries are way ahead than others in their development.
China
China is currently the biggest crypto-miner in the world. Some experts estimate that over 80% of all mining activity in the world originates in China.
The biggest farm in China would be in the Dalian region. The Dalian Mining Farm is currently one of the largest farms in the world, with one of the largest profitability. Its hash rate rests at 360,000TH, which would amount to around 750 Bitcoin mined every month.
The plant consumes a huge amount of power, which is one of the reasons why it’s located in China, as the cheap electricity prices are one of the key factors determining a plant's profitability in general.
Russia
Russia is also one of the countries leading the pack with some of the largest mining fields in the world. The largest one is most likely located near Moscow, with its exact location unknown likely due to the regulation and security reasons.
The factory performs with a huge hash rate of roughly 38PH per second, which it achieves by using custom-built Antminer S9 miners. The farm’s actual capacity is about 4,500 kilowatts per hour, which results in huge electric consumption. To get an idea, the electric bill would be somewhere around $100,000.
Georgia
Georgia is one of the countries that has made the biggest progress when it comes to crypto mining, and it’s largely due to one single company named Bitfury.
The data center in Georgia was founded several years ago, when the at-the-time prime minister of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, offered them a $10 million loan through his own investment fund. Bitfury was also to receive 45 acres of land for just one dollar and to top it all off, they would gain access to extremely cheap electricity fees, which would halve the costs as compared to what they'd pay in Western countries.
Georgia now generates staggering amounts of cryptocurrency. It’s estimated that the most it has generated in a day exceeds $300,000 in value.
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