Bitcoin Mining in a University Dorm: A Cooler BTC Story

by · February 9, 2023

The humble university dorm is a place for undergraduate students to study, rest, make new friends, host wild dorm parties and, of course, mine Bitcoin (BTC).

A master’s student in market research and self-described “computer guy,” Blake Kaufman, has connected an S9 Bitcoin miner to the Bitcoin network.

He won the S9 miner in a raffle at a Bitcoin meetup in mid-Michigan and immediately began learning how to use it.

During a video call with Cointelegraph, Blake joked that he knew next to nothing about mining before the raffle. The moment he won, he ran to the nearest place with a power cable and an Ethernet connection to try it out, his father’s office.

“We turned it on and never heard one [an S9] for. And if you know, when they start, they immediately go up to 100% and we’re all just in the room like—oh my god—this thing is loud! We drove it for probably two hours and we went into that office and it was hot.”

The hot and noisy realization sent his brain into overdrive. Winter in Michigan was fast approaching, and his university provides free electricity. Why not mine Bitcoin from a dorm room and take advantage of the game heat? It was a small but audible hurdle to overcome. “How can we fix the noise,” he asked.

“I was just looking up online, like, how to noise cancel the S9, and this picture of a cooler on Pinterest popped up. Me and my dad said, ‘Let’s build it. Why not?’ So we bought a $5 cooler on Facebook Marketplace and we had the pipes in our attic and we spent about two hours drilling holes and it ended up working.”

The pair constructed the Bitcoin mining cooler, which now takes up residence in Blake’s dorm room. The finished product wouldn’t look out of place in any dorm room and is “actually quieter than an air conditioner,” he explains.

Two angles of the cooler encapsulated Bitcoin miner.

But aren’t there rules against this at the university? Won’t the energy-hungry Bitcoin miner put a dent in the university’s electricity overhead?

“So the miner is about 900 watts an hour, a mini fridge is about 60 to 100 watts a day. So that draws a decent amount of power there. I looked up all the rules and nowhere did it say you couldn’t mine a Bitcoin or use a Bitcoin miner. So if they say you can’t do this, I’d be like, okay, you didn’t say I couldn’t.”

In a nutshell, Blake doesn’t break any rules. Moreover, a miner in a dormitory in a large university dormitory of thousands of students is unlikely to arouse suspicion. It’s an ode to the famous saying attributed to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper that sometimes, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

The ASIC S9 is now whizzing away, generating approximately 0.000001 BTC or 100 satoshis – the smallest amount of a Bitcoin – per Bitcoin block, which happens on average every 10 minutes. That translates to “about a dollar a day” in fiat money. It’s small change, but not to be sniffed at as a student.

Blake’s total outlay to start his Bitcoin mining venture was a cooler box and a few cables for less than $20, and he can probably reuse the cooler in the summer.

The mine cooler’s interior.

Blake’s next challenge, by the way, is figuring out what to do when the weather improves and the mercury rises. Peak summer days in Michigan can reach 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius). As a result, the outside air temperature will not cool the miner, an important part of the operation:

“So I have to figure something out, maybe put it in a box of ice cubes and something like that. I do not know yet.”

Blake has already considered using the Bitcoin miner to heat his family home after graduation. The idea, Blake explains, is to experiment with whether he can offset gas costs at home and make it profitable. “It’s just unfortunate because in Michigan our electricity cost is $0.14 per kilowatt hour.”

Michigan’s energy costs are relatively high in the United States, as shown by a darker purple color. Source: chooseenergy.com

Electricity and heating costs are higher in Michigan than in energy-producing states like Texas. Using the waste heat from Bitcoin mining can be a way to offset the energy costs.

Related: The Bitcoin shitcoin machine: Mining BTC with biogas

There is actually a growing trend to use waste heat from Bitcoin miners, especially prevalent for home or “chicken coop miners” as they are known. BTC Gandalf from Braiin’s marketing team told Cointelegraph:

“Chicken shack” miners are the backbone of the Bitcoin network’s hash rate. It’s amazing to see all the different ways they find mine. They provide an invaluable service in keeping the hash rate decentralized.”

Armed with a ton of Bitcoin knowledge, Blake has since been trying to outsmart his classmates and even his professors. Unfortunately, some of them have the belief that “Bitcoin is a scam.” He has taken it upon himself to set the record straight:

“I send an email to the teachers saying, Hi, office hours, what time are they? Let’s have a chat. You can’t just come out and say Bitcoin is a scam with a Bitcoiner in the room.”

Meanwhile, S9 buzzes away in his dorm, contributing to a network that Blake strongly supports and generates 100% “free money.”

Well, “other than the $30,000 a year tuition I pay, but it’s 100% free electricity,” he joked.