Americans are heating their homes with bitcoin this winter

As the cold of winter settles in across the United States,… Electricity bills If the budget problem becomes larger, most Americans will rely on usual sources of warmth, such as home heating oil, natural gas, and electric furnaces. But in a few cases, encryption It generates heat, and if some proponents of the emerging cryptoheat industry are right, its use as a source inside homes and buildings will one day become more widespread.

Let’s start with the basics: The computational power of mining cryptocurrencies generates a lot of heat, most of which ends up venting into the air. According to digital asset brokerage K33, the Bitcoin mining industry It generates about 100 TWh of heat Annually — enough to heat all of Finland. This wastes energy inside too Energy-intensive industry It leads entrepreneurs to look for ways to reuse heat in homes, offices or other locations, especially in cold weather months.

During a severe cold snap earlier this year, The New York Times reviewed HeatTrio, A $900 space heater that can also be used as a Bitcoin mining rig. Others use the heat generated by cryptocurrency mining at home to spread warmth throughout their home.

“I’ve seen Bitcoin rigs running quietly in the attic, redirecting the heat they generate through the house’s ventilation system to offset heating costs,” said Jill Ford, CEO of Bitford Digital, a sustainable Bitcoin mining company based in Dallas. “It’s a smart use of what would otherwise be wasted energy.” “Using heat is another example of how cryptocurrency miners can be energy allies if they apply some creativity to their capabilities,” Ford said.

This won’t necessarily save someone money on their electricity bill — the economics will vary widely from place to place and person to person, based on factors including local electricity prices and how fast the mining machine is — but the approach could generate money to offset heating costs.

“Same price as heating a house, but the advantage is that you are mining Bitcoin,” Ford said.

One mining machine – even if it is an older model – is enough. Solo miners can join mining pools to share computing power and receive proportional payouts, making returns more predictable and changing the economic equation.

“The concept of using cryptocurrency mining or GPU computing to heat homes is smart in theory because almost all the energy consumed by calculations is released as heat,” said Andrew Sopko, founder of Argentum AI, which is creating a market for sharing computing power. But he added that the concept makes more sense in larger environments, especially in cold climates or high-density buildings, such as data centers, where computational heat shows real promise as a form of heat recovery on an industrial scale.

To make this work – it’s not like you can just move the heat somewhere on a truck or train – you have to identify where you need the computing heat and direct it to that place, e.g. Share GPUs in environments from industrial complexes to residential buildings.

“We’re working with partners who are already redirecting computational heat into building heating systems and even agricultural greenhouses. This is where the economic and environmental benefits really make sense,” Sopko said. “Instead of trying to actually transfer heat, you can approximate computing in terms of providing that valuable heat,” he added.

Why skeptics say heating a home with crypto won’t work

There are a lot of skeptics.

Derek Mohr, a clinical associate professor at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, doesn’t believe the future of home heating lies in cryptocurrencies, and says even synthetic cryptocurrencies are a problem.

Bitcoin mining is now so specialized that a home computer, or even a network of home computers, would have almost no chance of being useful in mining a block of bitcoin, according to Moore, with mining farms using specialized chips being created to mine bitcoin much faster than a home computer.

“Although Bitcoin mining at home — and on networks of home computers — was something that had modest success 10 years ago, it is no longer the case,” Mohr said.

“The Bitcoin space heaters I’ve seen seem to be simple space heaters that use your electricity to heat a room… which is not an efficient way to heat a home,” he said. “Yes, Bitcoin mining generates a lot of heat, but the only way to get it to your home is to use your own electricity,” Mohr said.

He added that although running your computer non-stop may generate heat, the probability of successfully mining a Bitcoin block is very low.

“In my opinion, this is not a real opportunity that is going to work,” Mohr said. “Instead, it takes advantage of things that people have heard about — the excess heat generated by Bitcoin mining and profits from mining — and gives false hope that there is a way that an individual can benefit from it.”

But some experts say the widespread use of self-contained, plug-and-play mining rigs may make the concept viable in more locations over time. At the very least, they say it’s worth considering the dual-use economic and environmental benefits based on the basic fact that cryptocurrency mining generates significant heat as a byproduct of computer processing.

“How can we capture the excess heat generated by the process to power something else? This can range from heating a home to heating water, even in a swimming pool. As a result, the operating efficiency is higher relative to energy consumption,” said Nikki Morris, executive director of the Ralph Lowe Energy Institute at Texas Christian University.

She says the concept of heating up cryptocurrencies is still in its early stages, and most people don’t yet understand how it works or what the wider implications are. “That’s part of what makes it so interesting,” Morris said. “At Texas Christian University, we see opportunities to help people build vocabulary and business feasibility with industry partners.”

Because cryptocurrency mining produces digital assets that can be traded, it offers a new source of income from energy consumption, and the energy source could be anything from the grid to natural gas to solar to wind or battery generation, according to Morris. She cited electric vehicle charging in mixed-use buildings or residential complexes as an example.

“Imagine a similar scenario where a cryptocurrency mining setup in an apartment complex produces both digital currency and usable thermal energy,” Morris said. “This opens the door to distributed energy innovation across a broader stakeholder base, an approach that can complement existing heating systems and renewable energy generation strategies.”

There are many questions to explore, including efficiency at different levels, integration with other energy sources, regulatory considerations, and overall environmental impact, “but as these technologies evolve, it’s useful to look at crypto heating not just as a curiosity, but as a small window into how digital and physical energy systems will increasingly converge in the future,” Morris said.

Bitcoin temperature test in the real world

A crypto-filled future may be unfolding in Challis, Idaho, where Kidd Peterson’s company Softwarm is reusing Bitcoin’s heat to ward off winter.

Many stores and businesses in town are experimenting with Softwarm mining and heating devices. At TC Car, Truck and RV Wash, the owner was spending $25 a day to heat his wash bays to melt snow and warm the water, Peterson says.

“Traditional heaters consume energy with no returns,” Peterson said. “They have installed Bitcoin mining devices and they generate more money in Bitcoin than they cost to run.” Meanwhile, an industrial concrete company is offsetting its $1,000-a-month bill for heating its 2,500-gallon water tank by heating it with Bitcoin.

Peterson has been heating his home for two and a half years with Bitcoin mining equipment, and believes heat will power almost everything in the future. “You’re going to go to Home Depot in a few years and buy a water heater with a data port on it and your water will be heated using bitcoin,” Peterson said.