Canada may become a big Bitcoin mining country! Millions of miners will enter the country!
At present, some international companies are planning to transfer Alberta as a Bitcoin mining base and will move millions of miners. If this happens, Canada’s bitcoin production will account for one-third of the world’s output.
Black Rock Petroleum, headquartered in Nevada, USA, proposed in the agreement that three natural gas construction sites in southern Alberta will receive up to 1 million bitcoin miners relocated from foreign countries.
The value of Bitcoin soared last year. It is an electronic currency that can be transferred between users without the need for a central bank. It uses blockchain technology to maintain a decentralized transaction ledger. The process of unlocking new bitcoins to join the existing circulation is called mining. It requires plenty of computers equipped with high-performance processors to solve complex mathematical problems to realize bitcoin transactions and earn bitcoins. Since mining requires many computers to operate continuously, there is massive energy demand.
Black Rock Petroleum’s press release pointed out that the contract terms for the natural gas site’s use period are 24 months.
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), cryptocurrency analyst Alex de Vries said that relocating bitcoin mining machines to Alberta will involve billions of dollars of investment in fossil fuels as energy sources. He roughly estimated that the number of computers used to mine coins in the world reached 3 million. In other words, if Alberta had 1 million computers, it would account for about one-third of the world.
According to information on the CoinMarketCap website, as of Monday, one bitcoin is worth more than US$46,000, and the total market supply is worth more than US$866 billion.
De Vries pointed out, “The carbon emissions of this industry network have exceeded the total carbon emissions saved by all-electric vehicles in the world.” He estimated that the electricity consumption involved in the plan would be between 10% and 30% of Alberta’s total natural gas power generation.
Black Rock Petroleum said that the first batch of 200,000 miners would be located at the natural gas plant in Quirk Creek, Alberta. Black Rock Petroleum acquired Caledonian Midstream, the company that operates the plant, early last month. However, the company’s chief executive, Charles Selby, admitted, “From the perspective of our current natural gas production capacity, the more reasonable number of miners is 10,000, rather than the 200,000 mentioned in the press announcement.”
Zoltan Nagy, Chief Executive Officer of Black Rock Petroleum, said that generators would be added to the construction site to meet energy demand. However, the details of financing are inconvenient to disclose at this stage.
The outside world knows little about the scale and financial background of Black Rock Petroleum. Alfred Lehar, an associate professor at the University of Calgary School of Business, questioned whether Black Rock Petroleum has sufficient financial capacity to realize this plan. “Compared with the large-scale energy companies we are familiar with local, they don’t have many assets. They must be a small company.”
Black Rock Petroleum said in a press announcement that it would cooperate with Chinese company OMH (Optimum Mining Host Ltd.), which will bear a large number of funds to be raised in the agreement and be responsible for providing security personnel on duty 24 hours.
The migration of many Bitcoin miners is a very complex logistics project involving a large amount of land, talents and Internet connection technology. It is currently unknown how many people will be needed, but Black Rock Petroleum said that the factory would be staffed by technicians and staff who understand Chinese and English to operate and operate.
The conversion of the Quirk Creek natural gas plant into a Bitcoin mining farm requires the approval of the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC). Najib said he has studied the matter but has not yet contacted the relevant officials.
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