- Home cryptocurrency miner Dan van der Ster has found a novel way of dealing with excess heat from his rig
- van der Ster uses the hot air generated to warm his greenhouse and chicken coop
- Other crypto miners have tried using exhaust air to warm rooms in their house
Just as many critics of cryptocurrency blow incredible amounts of hot air, so does cryptocurrency mining. Cryptocurrency mining equipment gets incredibly hot, creating huge amounts of hot air which is whisked away by cooling fans. The average cryptocurrency miner tries to expel this hot air as quickly as possible, but some have turned a waste product into something much more useful.
Roast Chicken Anyone?
One cryptocurrency miner who has taken a very solution-based approach to the question of what to do with all that excess heat is 40-year-old French engineer Dan van der Ster. van der Ster, who mines cryptocurrency at home, told the Wall Street Journal that initially he funnelled the heat from the miners to his greenhouse in order to achieve a more temperate climate to grow vegetables and herbs he normally wouldn’t have been able to do.
van der Ster has decided to try his hand at something more challenging than looking after his veggies – looking after livestock. He is now pumping the hot air into an outdoor chicken coop (“it’s chilly out there”), although of course he will have to keep a sharp eye on the temperature as he will want to avoid coming down one morning to a rotisserie chicken.
Cryptocurrency Miner Heating Cheaper Than Traditional Heating
van der Ster isn’t the first cryptocurrency miner to make use of the constant supply of warm air. Thomas Smith took to Medium in 2019 to explain how he was able to comfortably heat his living room with the warm air from cryptocurrency miner, discovering that it was pound for pound cheaper to operate than an electric space heater, not counting the money earned from selling the cryptocurrency mined. Incredibly, it was also cheaper than heating the same room with natural gas, once all costs were considered.
Of course, if you are an industrial grade cryptocurrency miner then the amount of heat you will be giving off will not so much warm your house as turn it into the tropics section of the zoo while also making it as loud as an airport, but it’s something for those of a technical mind to consider if they want to get establish themselves as a home cryptocurrency miner.
