An American crypto mining operation has launched the first-of-its-kind facility that aims to cut cooling and energy costs.
TMGcore is a technology development company that focuses on cryptocurrency mining. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, the company owns and operates its Legacy 1, 150,000 square foot, Class A Tier III facility that is capable of a 100-megawatt live power load.
TMGcore has also entered into a real estate investment partnership and long-term lease for the facility with Principals of Pinchal & Company. They have invested $60 million into the project.
In an interview with CoinJournal, John David Enright, TMGcore CEO and former specialist at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), said that the company’s main focus up until this point has been creating technology that allows them ‘to mine in the most efficient manner possible.’
“This lead to the creation of the TMGcore Hydro Skid, a 1MW two-stage liquid immersion skid that reduces HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) costs up to 95% while creating a clean, stable, and secure environment allowing us to get 20-30% more performance out of the miners,” Enright added.
Together with the company’s two phase liquid immersion cooling mining HydroPods, and the 3M Novec immersion fluid, the company has developed a unique use case that delivers smart, safe, and sustainable cooling for industrial technology operations.
“Our miners are completely immersed in this fluid,” said Enright. “As the miners get hot, the fluid starts to boil, carrying the heat upwards in the form of a gas, the gas makes contact with the cooling coils, turns back into a liquid, and runs back into the bottom of the tank.”
Via this method, TMGcore are able to achieve significant mining results while using the same power inputs as traditional mining operations. The only differences being it takes up less floor space and eliminates the reliance on less effective HVAC cooling technologies.
In line with their focus on mining for cryptocurrencies in the most efficient manner possible, the company is planning on becoming a 100 percent renewable energy operation by 2019 with the construction of its Legacy 2 facility. According to Enright, TMGcore are partnering with one of the largest providers of renewable energy to build a 100-200-megawatt operation that is fed by a mix of solar, wind, and battery backups to achieve its goal.
“We also plan on launching “Green Pool” which will the first and only Bitcoin mining pool that is powered by renewable energy,” he added.
TMGcore’s Green Pool project is aiming to show that it can build a better pool while saving the Earth’s finite resources. The company’s website states that through ‘a mix of solar, wind, and battery storage we can utilise the same amount of power while showing the Bitcoin network can thrive without destroying the planet.’
As the process of mining Bitcoin is energy intensive, the industry is becoming more aware of the impact it is having. As a result, TMGcore believe that a major shift in crypto mining will see a switch from typical air cooled miners to liquid immersion cooling.
Despite Bitcoin’s popularity, the first six months of 2018 have proven to be tough for the cryptocurrency market. Last month, Bitcoin’s value fell below $6,000 twice following various events which impacted its price. These included the hacks at South Korean crypto exchanges Bithumb and Coinrail. Japan’s financial watchdog, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) also issued business improvement orders to six of the country’s crypto exchanges, one of which included bitFlyer.
Yet, regardless of this, Enright said that ‘mining is essentially the ‘backbone’ of the Bitcoin network, and without mining, it simply cannot exist.’
“We believe Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the future of commerce and we want to be building the infrastructure for these currencies to thrive into the future,” he added.
Another reason is to bring more of the overall hash rate out of China and into the U.S. Home to some of the biggest mining pools in the world – AntPool, BTC.com, and BTCC, to name a few – China has remained at the forefront of the industry. This can be seen by the fact that China accounts for around 70 percent of Bitcoin’s hash rate distribution among the biggest mining pools. Cheap electricity is one of the reasons why China has been a leader, in addition to a cool climate that is conducive to mining, and access to mining hardware.
“Limiting the Asian monopoly on mining is extremely important to TMGcore,” said Enright. “Bitcoin was meant to be a distributed network and we are working towards bringing a larger portion of the world’s hash rate to America.”
However, with market prices far from where they were mid-December, some analysts have suggested that for some, mining will no longer be profitable. Back in March, Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, said Bitcoin was trading at the ‘break-even’ cost of mining a Bitcoin. At the time, it was valued at over $8,000. Since then it has dropped and is currently trading at $6,654, according to CoinMarketCap.
In Enright’s opinion, though, it is still profitable to mine cryptocurrencies.
“The price of Bitcoin and other cryptos will go up and down, but the mining hardware will always continue to get stronger and use less electricity,” he added. “By being on the forefront of developing these technologies we feel cryptocurrency mining will stay profitable for years to come.”