Bitmain opens a large crypto mining farm in Texas

Chinese mining hardware giant Bitmain has launched a 50MW (megawatt) cryptocurrency mining farm in Rockdale, Texas.

Announcing the news on Monday, Bitmain said the farm can expand to a capacity of over 300MW, making it “the world’s largest for bitcoin mining.” It is Bitmain’s third cryptocurrency mining project in the U.S., per the announcement.

For building and operating the Texas facility, Bitmain has partnered with Rockdale Municipal Development District and Canadian tech firm DMG Blockchain Solutions. The 50MW farm has been constructed on a 33,000-acre land owned by aluminum producer Alcoa, per the announcement. Bitmain said it will later expand the farm to over 300MW capacity.

DMG will manage and operate the mining facility in Texas. Bitmain will purchase energy directly from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the electric grid in Rockdale, per the announcement.

“The stable and efficient energy resources in Texas are fundamental to the inevitable scale of growth for the cryptocurrency mining industry,” said Clinton Brown, Bitmain’s lead project manager for Rockdale.

Just last week, Digital Currency Group (DCG)-backed firm Layer1 raised $50 million to build mining chips and to run its own electricity substations in Texas. To that end, the firm bought a dozen acres of land in the city.