Crypto coins, blockchain and NFT’s are the new trend and everyone it seems to be so interested in them, that are repurposing shipping containers used or new, into full cryptocurrency mining systems all over the world. What does this mean? It means that everyone with some DIY knowledge, time and of course money can turn a shipping container, put racks, vents, cooling systems and set up a crypto mining system in a few weeks. It all now depends if you want to DYI or buy them already custom made, different sizes and improvements.
Let’s see now, is this legal? Just because you can and want to make it on your property, it doesn’t mean that it’s legal too, so ask your local authorities first, before trying to build or buy such systems. China for example, banned cryptocurrency mining and operations in September of last year ( 2021 ), because of the electricity shortage they were going through. They torn apart huge facilities that were build especially for crypto mining and operations around the country. China was top country that Bitcoin was mined, between 45% to almost 50%, because of it’s cheap price for electricity. Regulators across the world are saying that cryptocurrencies create a risk of undermining the government’s control over financial and monetary systems by trying to recreate the traditional financial systems, such as banks and exchanges, with cryptocurrency. Worst accusation to the cryptocurrencies and miners, is that they are promoting and facilitate illicit and criminal online activities, that can harm irreversibly the macroeconomics.
If we try to see the benefits, it’s that the miners use the shipping containers and repurpose them, so that in a way could be considered environmental friendly. On the other hand powering the processors could be done using a gas or fuel engine or just hooked up to the main grid. All that is producing huge amount of heat, so all the chillers and vents producing all the CO2, CFS ( chlorofluorocarbons ) and HFC’s ( hydrofluorocarbons ) emitted could be harmful to the environment contributing to the ozone depletion. The power that supports the Bitcoin Network, was estimated to be a 129 terawatt-hours ( TWh ) which is almost 1700% more than what Google uses for it’s servers and network, and that’s a lot!
Now with all these said, there are many people that are turning to cryptocurrencies and mining as a new way of income. To mine for a Bitcoin nowadays, takes between 7-9 years worth of household electricity, you can think that might be expensive or nonrealistic to invest in one, but some people do. Most common conex boxes used for mining, are the 20ft shipping containers, to which are mounted 6-8 rows of shelves for miners, air filters, cooling systems that can operate in temperatures of -14F to 95F. Adding to it’s shell, connection of three phase electrical powers ( 400 – 480 V ), electrical outlets, C19 12 port PDU’s, and up to 272 ASICs, that could be video surveilled, temperature monitored and access controlled, all done remotely. The fancier you go, the more you have to pay for them, but you always need security and control if you’re not on site all the time.
In our next post we would talk about what makes crypto mining container so special and what to consider when building or buying one, so stay with us and subscribe to our website so you can always get the best updates!
