Miners, energy companies, Bitcoin evangelists, and more congregated in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday to talk Bitcoin mining. From ASIC manufacturers to small-scale home miners, Scott’s Crypto Mining Conference hosted subject matter experts on all things Bitcoin mining.

Here are four things you missed in Austin this week:

Rockdale Tour

On Monday, some attendees had the opportunity to tour the biggest Bitcoin mining farm in Texas – Whinstone. Run by Whinstone CEO Chad Everett Harris and acquired by Riot Blockchain in May 2021, the 190,000-square-foot facility has a total power capacity of 750 MW with 300 MW developed.

Running at a power cost of 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, the Whinstone facility is continuing to expand and is experimenting with things such as immersion mining. The facility made headlines this past month with its choice to load shed during the recent winter ice storm.

Immersion

With the increase in network difficulty, immersion mining has been at the forefront of most every miner’s mind. This panel focused on the benefits and drawbacks of machine immersion.

Machine longevity, temperature fluctuations and heat recovery were the key talking points. For example, the panel noted immersed machine temperatures only fluctuate 1-2 degrees, compared to two-digit temperature swings for air-cooled machines.

Nat Gas to Bitcoin

When drilling for oil, you get natural gas. But you also can get Bitcoin. In this panel, the idea of Bitcoin as the “third” leg to the natural gas and oil tripod was presented and discussed. Panelists argued that locales with cheap abundant energy will begin to embrace Bitcoin as a means of job creation.

Saylor

Microstrategy CEO and noted Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor capped off the event, discussing the relation between consensus mechanisms like Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and physics. Saylor argued that PoW bases Bitcoin’s value in the physical reality due to energy consumption, compared to PoS’ inherently self-referential value.

Saylor also touched on the Bitcoin news cycle in reference to adoption rates and future supply crunches correlated to mining activity.

Given Bitcoin and bitcoin mining’s tremendous 2021, the event captured the lighting most industry participants expect in 2022.

Photo by Carlos Alfonso on Unsplash