Iceland Most Stable Region for BTC Mining, Cool Climate Adds Benefits: Arcane Researcher

BTC mining operations have been going on in Iceland for around the last ten years.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 27 February 2023 13:53 IST

Iceland Most Stable Region for BTC Mining, Cool Climate Adds Benefits: Arcane Researcher

Photo Credit: Bloomberg

Iceland produces 100 percent electricity via hydro power and geothermal energy

Highlights

The observation has been made by BTC mining researcher Jaran Mellerud
Iceland’s electricity production is safeguarded against inflation
Iceland’s climate helps keep the heat from BTC mining at bay

Iceland, owing to its cool climate, has tremendous potential to be one of world's most lucrative Bitcoin mining hotspot in the world. The European nation, that offers electricity at pocket-friendly prices, has a favourable climate to produce natural cooling to BTC mining operations, that are infamous for producing too much heat and carbon emissions. Jaran Mellerud, a BTC mining researcher from Arcane Research has called Iceland the most ‘stable' BTC mining region in the world.

BTC mining operations have been going on in Iceland for the last ten years. The regulatory watchdogs of the nation have also not expressed any issues around BTC mining operations, making Iceland quite the stable jurisdiction for these operations.

The nation inhabited by only around 370,000 people, has emerged as the biggest hash rate producer per capita, a CryptoPotato report said citing Mellerud's findings.

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The BTC mining industry in Iceland contributes 1.3 percent of the global BTC hash rate production with the electricity consumption of 120 MegaWatts.

Hash rate is a measure that shows how many calculations can be performed per second. These calculations of complex algorithms on advanced computers make for the BTC mining process.

As per Coinwarz, the current BTC mining hashrate stands at 140.00 Terahashes per second (Th/s) that consumes 3,010.00 watts of power.

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Meanwhile, Iceland's electricity system is completely independent with no ties to the global grids. The nation produces all of its electricity via renewable resources. As per the government of Iceland, 73 percent of its electricity is generated from hydropower whereas 27 percent is extracted from geothermal power.

This protects BTC miners against losing business due to inflation in international electricity prices.

The power costs in several parts of the world rose in recent times, which heavily impacted the crypto mining business around the world. As per a Bloomberg report, Bitcoin miners lost over $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,200 crore) owing to risen energy costs and the recent crypto crash in 2022.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Iceland, Climate, Bitcoin Mining

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More