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• Tesla’s solar plant will power the Bitcoin mining facility in Texas
• Goal of the project is to prove mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure
Crypto firm Blockstream Corp and Jack Dorsey’s fintech company Block Inc (NYSE: SQ), formerly Square, is planning to mine Bitcoin in Texas that will use Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) solar and energy storage technology.
The electric-car maker’s 3.8 megawatts solar PV and 12 megawatt-hours Megapack will power the mining facility, Blockstream CEO Adam Back said at the Bitcoin Conference 2022 in Miami.
The facility, which is expected to be completed later this year, will prove that “Bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure and build economic growth for the future,” Black said.
“People like to debate about the different factors to do with bitcoin mining. We figured, let’s just prove it. Have an open dashboard so people can play along, maybe it can inform other players to participate,” he added.
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A dashboard that will show real-time metrics of the project’s performance, including power output and total bitcoin mined, will be publicly accessible, and a later version will also include solar and storage performance data points.
“This is a step to proving our thesis that bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure and build economic growth for the future,” Back said.
In June 2021, Blockstream and then Square announced the $12 million joint initiative, which will be split evenly between the two companies, and to build a facility in Texas as part of Block’s pledge to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Last February, Block secured a purchase of Bitcoin mining chips from Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC), and Dorsey revealed the plan to decentralize mining and make the Bitcoin network more secure with his company’s technology.