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#bitcoin#bitcoinmining#china

Inside a Secret Chinese Bitcoin Mine

Motherboard

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  • Recommended by 1 person: 1 on Hacker News.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

4.7M views11 years ago1 recommendation

HardwareDistributed systemsCryptographyThe tech industry

Motherboard visits a massive, secretive Bitcoin mining facility in rural China to show the hardware infrastructure and working conditions.

In 2014, before Ethereum and altcoin mania, before ICOs and concerns about Tether and Facebook's Libra, Motherboard gained access to a massive and secretive Bitcoin mine housed within a repurposed factory in the Liaoning Province in rural northeast China. This is the infrastructure that keeps the digital currency’s decentralized network up and running, and its operators were profiting big time. The mine we visited was just one of six sites owned by a secretive group of four people, part of a colossal mining operation that, as of our visit, cumulatively generated 4,050 bitcoins a month, equivalent to a monthly gross of $1.5 million as of 2015. Since then, the cryptocurrency mining world has become even more extreme. Subscribe to MOTHERBOARD: bit.ly/Subscribe-To-MOTHERBOARD Follow MOTHERBOARD Facebook: facebook.com/motherboardtv Twitter: twitter.com/motherboard Tumblr: motherboardtv.tumblr.com/ Instagram: instagram.com/motherboardtv More videos from the VICE network: fb.com/vicevideos

Why it's here

1 person recommends this

What people say. Recommended for its fascinating and gritty look inside the physical scale and environment of early Chinese Bitcoin mines.

teknologiston Hacker News • Recommends

On “Photos: Life inside of China’s massive and remote Bitcoin mines”

Vice produced a video called "Life Inside a Chinese Bitcoin Mine" which complements these photos with a bit of an eerie audio/visual experience. The noise of these machines is incredibly loud and annoying even in the edited video and the people running these things essentially live in squalor. link Non-Flash: link to this video

brilliantcodeon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Two of China's Biggest Exchanges Stop Bitcoin Withdrawals”

Won't guys like this link to this video get affected? If all they can do is mine but not cash out, what happens to the network transaction speed and the overall difficulty?

Animatson Hacker News • Mentions

On “Bitcoin, blockchains, and national security”

No, they're not outside of China. Locating a Bitcoin farm in China allows paying for power, equipment, and staff in yuan, while generating revenue in dollars or euros, legally. Northeast China mine: 1 Another China mine: 2 Mine in Kangding: 3 BW Pool and Antpool, in Inner Mongolia: 4 OxBTC farm (possibly in Ordos): 5 1 link to this video 2 link 3 link 4 link 5 link