Texas-based cryptocurrency miners have started to shut down their Bitcoin-making operations across the region as part of their preparation for the winter storm that might strike in the next few days.
One of them is the Riot Blockchain, a known miner in North America which is currently on the watch for the disaster that will hit the state's power grid.
Riot Blockchain on Power Reduction For Bitcoin Mining
A worker installs a new row of Bitcoin mining machines at the Whinstone US Bitcoin mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, on October 9, 2021.
Since the Arctic blast is about to hit the state in the next few days, many crypto miners who have taken advantage of the low-energy prices in Texas decided to save electricity for what's coming next.
According to a report by Coindesk. the miners will now save electricity so they could prevent encountering a harsh power failure that took place in the state last year.
At that time, the power resulted in property damage worth $200 billion. On top of that, nearly 4.5 households and establishments were affected.
In an email earlier this week, Riot spokesperson Trystine Payfer said that the company has "voluntarily" started power reduction to their mining servers based in Whinstone, Austin.
On Wednesday, Feb. 2, the energy use was cut by "roughly" 98%, according to the report.
Before that, Chad Harris, the CEO of Whinstone, and Riot boss Jason Les spoke to Governor Greg Abbott about this preparation. They said that they were shutting down the Bitcoin-mining operations for the upcoming winter storm.
It's indicated in the same report that the power used in crypto mining is already sufficient to supply electricity across 60,000 households in Texas.
"Whinstone began taking proactive measures to prepare for shutting down its mining operations in response to any demand surges in Ercot," Payfer said with regards to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Related Article: Riot Blockchain Releases Q2 2021 Report--Mining Revenues Record 1,540% Surge From $1.9 Million
How Could ERCOT Avoid Unnecessary Blackouts During Storm
Indeed, preparing for an impending calamity needs a lot of time and assessment to minimize the damages during the actual encounter.
Per Bloomberg, ERCOT can potentially solve the blackouts in the state through the "demand response programs." This means that industrial plants and companies will be needing to shut down their operations to save electricity.
Since there are risks in shutting down the servers aside from profit loss, the grid operator will pay the crypto miners for conserving power.
During the previous winter storm in February 2021, Whinstone trimmed its power use for more than a week. Annually, the company does this for as many as 275 hours.
Aside from Riot Blockchain, another crypto miner Compute North based in Minnesota announced its plans of shutting down its plant in Texas as part of power conservation ahead of the freezing field.
More Crypto Mining News
Meanwhile, Kazakh crypto miners were reportedly relocating to the United States of America and Russia because of the worsening electricity shortage in the country.
Elsewhere, Tech Times reported that former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was looking forward to the construction of a crypto mining system.
Block, which was headed by the tech boss, expected to launch it for this year.
Read Also: Crypto Prices Might Not Be Boosted By Mainstream Acceptance--Goldman Sachs
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joseph Henry
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