Cryptocurrency has the potential to revolutionize our monetary system. Bitcoin — the largest cryptocurrency — could provide people with a decentralized financial system that is more secure and streamlined and difficult to counterfeit.
But as bullish as people are on Bitcoin, there’s been a difficult-to-ignore shadow looming over the industry: its perceived energy consumption. All cryptocurrency transactions are recorded through a process called mining. This process requires many verified crypto miners to validate a transaction by solving incredibly difficult mathematical puzzles. This acts as a way to verify all transactions in a decentralized manner, but because Bitcoin mining requires a lot of computing power, it uses a decent amount of energy.
Now, a new data center is moving away from users to harness renewable energy at its source: West Texas.