Sustainable crypto mining company MintGreen has completed its seed investment round, with CoinShares, the leading digital asset manager, leading the way.
Some of the funds will likely be used to support two pilot projects to show how MintGreen’s proprietary technology can improve the energy efficiency of Bitcoin mining.
MintGreen has two pilot projects planned to begin in the next quarter. The first involves selling heat waste from Bitcoin mining to the sea salt facility on Vancouver Island, where the heat is used to boil water and distill salt flakes.
Heat waste is also reused in their production process by the Canadian whiskey company Shelter Point Distillery.
A March 17 announcement by CoinShares said the companies will work together to convert waste heat from crypto mining into hot water and heating services that will be sold to industrial customers.
The companies hope their efforts can change the general perception of bitcoin mining as wasteful and inefficient. The blog post says:
“We are very excited to be working with MintGreen, where we will join the board, and the like-minded investors we have included in this deal to transform the Bitcoin mining landscape and its image in the mainstream media.”
MintGreen is a Canada-based company that builds and operates immersive bitcoin mining systems using clean energy.
Bitcoin has long struggled to overcome the perception of high energy efficiency, with the mainstream often comparing the energy consumption of the mining sector with entire countries.
Last month, the BBC reported that bitcoin mining is more energy intensive than the entire country of Argentina. Michel Rauchs of Cambridge University stated:
“Bitcoin actually uses so much electricity. This won’t change in the future unless the price of Bitcoin drops significantly. “
However, mainstream analysis often overlooks the fact that most Bitcoin mines run on renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. The third global Cryptoasset benchmarking study from the University of Cambridge found that more than three-quarters of miners use renewable energy sources.
