Blockstream, a Bitcoin infrastructure startup, today announced their collaborative effort with Square, Inc., the financial services and digital payments company headed by Jack Dorsey, to build an open-source, solar-powered Bitcoin mining facility at one of Blockstream’s mining sites in the United States.
Together, they plan to provide public transparency by sharing details of the project economics and the knowledge gained from building a Bitcoin mine powered by renewable energy. Ultimately, the project is designed to raise awareness and show how bitcoin mining in conjunction with renewable energy can help drive the clean energy transition.
Square intends to invest $5M in the facility, with Blockstream providing infrastructure and expertise to build and manage the project. The facility will be a proof-of-concept for a 100% renewable energy Bitcoin mine at scale, with the economics of the build-out—including operational costs and ROI—made open to the public.
“Many mining operations throughout the world, including our own, already rely on renewable energy because it is the most cost-effective power available. Together with Square, we hope that the open and transparent nature of the project will become a model that other businesses can learn from,” said Chris Cook, Chief Information Officer and head of Mining at Blockstream. “We’re hoping to demonstrate that a renewable mining facility in the real world is not only possible but also empirically prove that Bitcoin accelerates the world toward a sustainable future.”
The solar-powered mining project is also designed to be scalable, enabling Blockstream to add additional capacity and support more participants to significantly expand renewable mining operations in the future.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Blockstream to provide an open-source working model for our combined thesis that Bitcoin can further accelerate the renewable energy transition,” said Neil Jorgensen, Global ESG Lead at Square, Inc. “The project will serve as an ongoing, transparent case study that will allow us to all learn together the specific unit economics of clean energy Bitcoin mining. We can’t wait to start sharing our results with the community.”
In addition to providing regular reports on the project’s economics, Blockstream is building a freely accessible dashboard showing real-time metrics of the project’s performance, including power output and bitcoin mined.
The dashboard, based on technology developed for the Blockstream Mining Note (BMN), aims to be available 24/7 from any browser, providing the industry with a real-world, real-time case study of a renewable energy Bitcoin mine.