A German built his own electronic gold mine He produces Bitcoins If you have 10 Percent of the global calculation power you will generate 200.000 Dollar daily. But why Island? Why are Bitcoins useful and … …can you do it in Germany as well? Our research starts with this nondescript hall. Nobody knows where it is located… …but it´s about huge money. After days of research we find a contact person. She tells us to fly to Island 2500 km away in the North Atlantc. We got instruction by telephone where to drive to exactly Then we finally arrive at our target. This is the hall we saw in the internet and… …we are already expected! Welcome, happy to have you here! Come in! Our host once had a successful construction business. Now he´s running operations like this all over the world. What awaits us? Looks like a science fiction movie Also a loud static noise Could we have some light? Obvioulsly, there are control lights …for thousands of computers.
The noise stems from huge ventilation fans on the ceiling Behind the door there are more computers looking differently… ..also producing deafening noise. They seem to calculate something The question is… what? All these computers have only one task: They are calculating Bitcoin and other crypto currencies This is a so called Bitcoin mine So… here, Bitcoins are produced. But this does not mean that those coins are produced. These are just for decoration purposes. They are used to illustrate Bitcoin Most people know Bitcoin as internet currency Because it can be sent anonymously it was considered as the currency of hackers… …drug dealers and nerds. But now, Bitcoin wants to conquer the world. In the US the SEC decides if Bitcoin can be traded within investment funds. The idea stems from the Winklevoss brothers The twins also helped to develop Facebook 4 years they worked on their Bitcoin fund But what has this Bitcoin mine to do with it? How can you make money here? …and does it work in Germany as well? Lets take another look at the hall.
Firstly, we see specialized computers. Gamers know them as graphic cards. They work extremely fast. Here are 20.000 graphic cards combined to a super computer In the other areas we find lots of other specialized computers. We are not allowed to tell how many. They are running 24/7 and invest their energy directly into the Bitcoin net. But why? The Bitcoin net is a payment net in the internet. You can transfer Bitcoins between parties. But these are not real coins but computer codes.
The owner of the code also owns the respective Bitcoins. Storing Bitcoins on a mobile phone is also possible. To purchase flights… …computers… …and even real estate. But the Bitcoin payment works without banks. These are computers in the Bitcoin network… …distributed all over the world… …like here in Iceland. Their task is to monitor everything. When Tim wants to send a Bitcoin to Sabine, the computers watch carefully. In a general ledger they check if Tim has sent this Bitcoin already to someone else. When they´ve checked everything, every computer documents this in the general ledger.
Then one Bitcoin is transferred from Tim´s Bitcoin account to Sabine´s account. Only if all computers have agreed on the transaction, Sabine will get the Bitcoin. In the network this transfer can be monitored in real time. It´s so that fast that we need slow motion to be able to actually see something. But the transfers actually happen anonymously. And yes, this is 2.6 Mio $ transaction… …of which no bank took any notice Monitoring these transactions is energy intense Therefore, the computers are rewarded… but not in Euros or Dollars… … but in brand-new Bitcoins. These Bitcoins are sent to your personal Bitcoin account. It´s like a gold mine, but Bitcoins are being mined instead of gold. And… as you can use it for purchases… You can convert it into real money. Bitcoin into Euro directly into your bank account. And many Bitcoin equal many Euro. And this is exactly what the miners are doing Globally, Bitcoins for 2 million USD are minded daily. And when you have 10% of the calculation power you generate 200.000 USD per day. Minus a lot of expenses for energy. Can you do this in Germany as well, connecting computers and start mining? We got a hint: In Bremen we will find a German Bitcoin miner.
His Name: Chris Straube. He shows us his mining equipment… …in a small shack in his backyard. On the left we see a few computers, not used for mining. On the right we see the same computers we have seen in Iceland. Chris shows us the processors that are generating the Bitcoins. These are highly specialized computers doing only one task… …but this very fast. But Chris´ computer is not running… …what is the problem? “Very low power prices are essential, and with the high expenses in Germany this does not make sense.” A small Bitcoin computer consumes half of the energy of a vacuum cleaner… …around the clock. It is generating Bitcoins of course… … but for each miner the amount gets smaller and smaller. Because more miners want a piece of the cake Power cost consumed Chris´ Bitcoin rewards. For a German household the power costs are too high.
But for Chris Bitcoin engagement has not come to an end. He is now trading Bitcoins. A couple of years ago there already was a similar Bitcoin hype… … some people already gained millions! But the bubble burst and the price dropped. Now it is rising again. Does it still make sense to buy Bitcoin? "It´s difficult to answer, because nobody knows how the Bitcoin price will develop." "If you´re interested you should do it, if you are afraid of losses, don’t." We are back in Iceland. Why is the hall with the computers located here? "Iceland is very interesting, because the energy prices are low." But not only cheap, also sustainable…
…only 6ct per kw/h – in Germany it´s almost 5 times more. In Iceland there is a lot of cheap thermal energy And much power is actually needed… … so much that the big cables are getting warm. The hall has a power input of 2 megawatt… …as much as a small size city. And this is only one of the crypto mines he´s running all over the world. How much money is he actually making? "…Yes, you earn money with it ;-)" Can you provide figures? I can´t tell you detailed figures. But our global electricity bill … is around 2 million USD per month. Only power." So, the profits should be millions of USD per month. What a lot of people do not know: Crypto is booming. There are a lot of crypto currencies, … …some of them are mined in Iceland and generate significant profits.
Also banks are getting interested. They are also working on their own crypto currencies… with Bitcoin as role model So in the future maybe we will use the Bitcoin technology without taking notice of it..
