US Bitcoin Opens Large Bitcoin Mine in Reeves County
Data centers tapping into the Permian Basin’s energy resources continue to grow across the region, seeking to support platforms from Bitcoin mining to climate mapping.
Reeves County is set to host one of the nation’s largest Bitcoin mines, currently running about half a percent of Bitcoin’s entire global network. The facility went from undeveloped land to fully operational in 43 days, providing employment opportunities for area residents and utilizing Midland contractor Lazoya for civil engineering and construction.
“We have been so excited to work with the Reeves County community as we grow our business. We have hired dozens of team members from the local community for both our initial build and operations,” Asher Genoot, US Bitcoin president and co-founder, told Reporter- Telegram via email.
“Since securing the Pecos site last winter, we have made progress to develop it as a showcase for the type of high-performance data centers we operate across the country,” he wrote.
He told the Reporter-Telegram that the Reeves County site offers plenty of room for expansion, making it the ideal launch pad for its West Texas operations.
“We’re called US Bitcoin Corp, but we’ve found a home in Texas,” he wrote. “We see a bright future for US Bitcoin in West Texas. Our initial success at Pecos proved the value we can bring to the region as a rapidly growing community-first business. We plan to continue scaling our operations in the area. As long as the sun shines and the wind blows, we plan to be a customer of the first renewable energy resort in Texas.”
The state’s top ranking in renewable energy production, with several gigawatts coming online each year, is a key reason the company is in West Texas, he wrote.
That said, he continued, this renewable energy has two obstacles: First, these renewable sources are intermittent – solar panels only work when the sun is shining, and wind turbines only spin when the wind is blowing. Second, the state has worked hard to “catch up” on the number of transmission lines required to move all this energy to users.
His company, he wrote, is helping the state’s grid overcome both of those problems. He explained that energy consumption is flexible, able to increase when there is plenty of renewable energy, and able to decrease when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. The plant can also absorb the extra energy generated by renewables and guarantee demand while the grid infrastructure catches up, he added.
When asked about the stability of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, Genoot observed, “this is not our first market cycle.”
“We see Bitcoin as a technology that presents a huge opportunity for the energy sector. For the first time, the world has a decentralized digital asset backed by energy. As digital adoption continues to grow, the opportunities for an internet-centric store of value only increase. Current market conditions are a indicative of the technology’s early phase,” he wrote.
