On October 21, 2019, Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain launched mining headquarters in Rockdale, Texas, in collaboration with the Rockdale Municipal Development District and Canadian blockchain firm DMG Blockchain Solutions.
The Texas facility will be located on a 33,000-acre site, and Bitmain will be working to increase its power output from the current 25 MW level to a maximum of 300 MW.
DMG will be in charge of keeping the site fully functional, working with both Bitmain and the municipal development district to recruit on-the-ground workers and ensure the maintenance of the facility’s tools and equipment.
“Being chosen by the world’s leading bitcoin mining company is a great testament to the capabilities of DMG’s mining team,” DMG CEO Dan Reitzik said in a statement shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “Over the past several months, Bitmain visited many large facilities throughout North America, including DMG’s flagship facility in British Columbia, Canada.”
Bitmain will also conduct training and educational programs for locals who are interested in learning more about blockchain technology and mining center operations, thanks to a partnership with the Rockdale school district.
The Texas bitcoin mining facility is about a year in the making. In August 2018, Bitmain first announced that it would be investing about $500 million into the development of a new mining facility in Rockdale, in an effort to ramp up its mining activities, while adding about 400 jobs in the process.
Things slowed down last year, however, due to a downturn in the cryptocurrency market, leaving many to speculate that the mining giant had botched its plans.
Bitcoin Miners Flock to Texas
The launch of this new center is a testament to Texas’ increasing appeal to bitcoin miners. As previously reported by Bitcoin Magazine, Layer1, a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency infrastructure company is building a full-stack mining facility in West Texas.
Fresh off of a Peter Thiel-led $50 million funding round, Layer1 will be turning its focus to Texas, as co-founder Alexander Liegl claimed that it plans to take advantage of the state’s competitive electricity prices and encouraging policies to upscale their operations.
As for Bitmain, this latest operation marks the continuation of a long line of progress that the company has made since the resurgence of the market this year. At the World Digital Mining Summit 2019 in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this month, Bitmain launched the World Digital Mining Map, which connects cryptocurrency mining hardware owners with mining farms close to them.
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