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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Four thousand kilometres from Moscow near the shores of the Angara River, a Russian firm operating a vast data centre run on cheap local hydroelectric power is reaping the rewards of bitcoin’s surging prices and plans to double its power output this year.
BitRiver hosts equipment at its flagship 100-megawatt data centre in the city of Bratsk, along with other smaller sites, for foreign miners of the cryptocurrency from the United States, Europe and Japan who want to harness the region’s cheap energy.
The company could already be responsible for as much as 2% of global bitcoin mining, Chief Executive Igor Runets estimated, but added precise figures in the sector were hard to come by.
Remote Siberian data center reaps rewards of bitcoin rally reuters.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reuters.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Bitcoin Price Breaks $50,000 Barrier on MicroStrategy s Plan to Buy More BTC
Not long after Elon Musk’s Tesla invested $1.5 billion into Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency has notched up yet another record price.
In brief
This means Bitcoin has recorded yet another all-time high.
The record comes two weeks after Tesla announced a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s price has broken the $50,000 barrier, reaching as high as $50,560, on the news that MicroStrategy will sell $600 million of convertible senior notes to buy more Bitcoin.
The business intelligence firm said today that it intends to sell these notes to institutional investors. The firm intends to use the net proceeds from the sale to acquire more Bitcoin. That would be in addition to the 71,079 BTC it already owns at a current value of $3.5 billion.
BITCOIN mining machines worth more than £40 million have been shipped to Russia as part of a major new operation launched by mysterious backers, according to industry insiders.