Bit heat: Bitcoin mining in your living room can now mean that both you and your wallet are hotter than ever, thanks to a new home heating contraption called Heatbit.
Do you hate the cold? If the thermometer sinks below tropical temps are you ready to move to Mercury?
Before you defect to the Swift Planet, a company has developed a home heater that mines Bitcoin (BTC) and uses the heat it generates while mining to warm your house. This is while depositing BTC into your wallet.
What is Bitcoin mining?
Bitcoin is moved around using a public, electronic ledger called the blockchain. Miners keep the blockchain working and healthy by using mining equipment to check the information is correct, and to add new blocks. They do this by solving mathematical puzzles. When their mining computers solve one of these puzzles, they get to add a new block, which has new information about money people have sent to each other.
And as a reward for helping to keep the blockchain functioning, miners are rewarded with new Bitcoin for themselves. This can be extremely profitable at scale, which is why so many mining companies have sprung up.
Can you use a Bitcoin miner as a heater?
The company, called Heatbit, claim that the device is the “ultimate heater with benefits, making you money while quietly warming your room. It covers up to 100% of your electricity bills. All you need is to plug it in.”
While they promise to cover all of your heating bills, this actually depends on where you live and how much electricity costs you, so take that bit with a grain of salt.
Priced at US$1,119, it will take quite the expanse of time to pay back the original investment, but who doesn’t want to mine Bitcoin while heating up your freezing extremities?
Who is Heatbit?
Alex Busarov started Heatbit in 2020. He is a Philosophy graduate of the London School of Economics, and has worked on energy strategies and ran different startups in Asia over 10 years before founding the company.
Says Busarov, “Our engineers have put in blood, sweat, and tears to revolutionise mining this way.”
Cryptocurrency mining operations often get criticised for their high use of energy. The mining rigs generate a lot of heat, which then need fans to cool them. Heatbit instead recycles the heat to replace other home heating devices. They do this using the same energy as a regular heater would, at 1,400W.
While it is heating, the HeatBit also mines Bitcoin for users, delivering up to 14 TH/s of hashing power.
14 TH/s, in comparison to commercial-grade mining equipment is relatively low. But it is still enough to be productive at a mining level. All users do is download the app and collect their Satoshis (the smallest units of Bitcoin).
Heatbit: Noise Control and testing
Heatbit say that their heater is as noisy as “a quiet library.” This, they say, is thanks to multiple patent-pending solutions that help with “soundproofing, vibration control, and noise suppression.”
The company say they have tested the hell out of it. “Harsh tests included covering the device working at full power with a blanket, stalling the fan, and many others to make sure it is safe to use in a residential environment. The testing agency even dropped metal balls on a Heatbit.”
Here is a very thorough review of the gadget. If you are asking yourself, “What are the best Bitcoin miners?” this might sway you. Or, repel you.
Bit heat might be the best heat
Busarov says, “It is important to understand that Heatbit is about supporting the decentralised money revolution. Bitcoin is supposed to be the cryptocurrency where everyone makes a small contribution. True decentralisation is many users, each contributing their little bit, not the large mining farms we see these days. I would much rather have them own a piece of the company in the spirit of decentralisation and community drive.”
Throw out the beer jacket, now you can keep warn with Bitcoin.
