PayPal’s Peter Thiel’s Bitcoin mining firm starts mining operations in West Texas on Wednesday kicking off the $50 million facility as the market awaits BTC halving.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) is on a rise in 2020 after a two-year bearish trend that crippled the crypto industry. Despite the drop in BTC prices, mining on the coin has not slowed down one single bit with new mining firms coming up every other day. PayPal’s co-founder, Peter Thiel, has been one of the huge investors in the industry raising $50 million USD to build a West Texas mining firm in 2019.
After months of construction, Layer 1, the West Texas mining firm, is finally ready and started operations on Feb. 19 according to reports from Fortune.
Layer 1 starts operations in Midland, Texas
The San Francisco based firm announced at the end of 2019 that it had raised close to $50 million USD from a number of investors including Peter Thiel. According to the report, the new Bitcoin mining firm is located about 100 miles west of Midland, Texas with an undisclosed number of mining units set up.
However, at the start of the year, a representative of Layer 1 said the firm is looking forward to controlling about 35% of the total hash rate in the world, doubling the rate of current heavyweights in Bitcoin mining.
Despite the hot conditions in Texas half the year, Layer1 CEO Alexander Liegl, said the price of electricity in the state is the reason why the firm chose to open in the location. He termed the electricity in Texas as the “the cheapest electricity in the world, at scale, is in West Texas right now.” Notwithstanding, the firm has come up with a cooling mechanism to improve mining equipment across its 3-acre firm.
Better equipment, no relocation!
Most of the Bitcoin mining firms in the world are located in cooler areas to prevent the overheating of the machines. However, Layer 1 is located in the hotter areas of Texas, which forces the company to come up with a cooling system for its devices. Instead of having a fan, Liegl said the company will dip the device in an oil-based coolant to prevent overheating while allowing overclocking in mining BTC as well as prolong the life cycle of the miner.
The upcoming Bitcoin halving in May, whereby the rewards will be cut in half from the current 12.5 BTC block reward to 6.25 BTC, does not seem to be a concern for Layer 1 as the 30% hashrate remains the goal for the firm. Liegl said,
“We don’t care about the halving at all. We just care about our competitors.”
