Bitmain Rolls Out US Bitcoin Mining Center Despite BTC Crash

[Leonardo]

The Chinese mining hardware giant Bitmain has opened a new data center in the small US town of East Wenatchee, located 240km (150 mi) from Seattle in the State of Washington. The company will use the $20 million investment to mine Bitcoin (BTC), local public radio station KNKX reported on Monday.

The data center has six buildings and will consume 12 megawatts electricity. The project will hire around 20 people from the town, which has approximately 13,000 residents. According to Jeff Stearns, Bitmain's director of operations for North America, the recent BTC price crash is not a concern for his company, but an opportunity, and therefore the firm is continuing with its BTC investments.

“We are really focused on the long term. I would say in this bear market situation, and I would call it that at this point in time, that really represents opportunity for a company such as ourselves,” Stearns explained as quoted by KNKX.

The opening ceremony saw the participation of local business and authorities including Evan Wendlandt, the business development manager at Washington State Department of Commerce. Wendlandt backed Bitmain investment as a way to diversify the technology footprint in the region. Currently, the state is home to cloud computing divisions of Yahoo Japan and Sabey Corporation, which serve clients such as T-Mobile and VMware. However, the Bitmain facility is not the first cryptocurrency mining investment in the area as Salcido Enterprise also has established several of its data centers in Douglas County.

In July, Bitmain signed a short-term lease for 10 acres with the Port of Walla Walla in the neighboring county, but has recently decided to abandon the project due to the high energy costs in that area, Stearns said. Last week, Chelan County in Washington proposed an electricity price increase for virtual coin mining.

According to Douglas County port executive director Lisa Parks, cryptocurrency mining facilities bring more advantages such as blockchain education of the workers than the negative consequences of higher electricity consumption.

“From our perspective though, we were looking at it as a way in which we can complement and advance our other industries in our community,” Parks said.

Currently, Bitmain, which is the largest miner of Bitcoin, plans several data centers including a large facility in the State of Texas.

Source: https://cryptovest.com/news/bitmain-rolls-out-us-bitcoin-mining-center-despite-btc-crash/

[cowz]

I don't know why any company is setting up a mining farm in the US, the electricity costs are high and regulation is fairly tight. Better options are available in energy rich countries