Exploring the Bitcoin Mine Under the Snow Mountains of Sichuan and Tibet

The mine in front of me has an annual output value of 50 million. In the broad sense of the mining industry, this annual output value can be regarded as a medium-sized mine. However, unlike other mines, the object of mining here is not the product of nature, not gold, coal or other minerals, but Bitcoin, a virtual network currency. "This is network gold, which cannot be seen or touched, but it really exists. Anyone can check it anytime and anywhere through the blockchain." Wu Gang, who was traveling with me in the car, said with a smile. He is the owner of this mine.

This Bitcoin mine is located in Kangding, Sichuan, at a hydropower station on the Dadu River. Along the way, there are more than a dozen large and small hydropower stations on the Dadu River. The excess water and electricity are turned into treasure again by Bitcoin mining. This mine is divided into four greenhouses, each of which stores 5,000 to 7,000 Bitcoin mining machines, which continuously calculate Satoshi Nakamoto's hash puzzle 24 hours a day, and can mine 95 to 100 Bitcoins every day, with a daily output value of about 150,000 yuan. It is currently the largest single Bitcoin mine in the world.

The computing power of this mine is disclosed

When you are 200 meters away from the mine, you can hear a roaring sound, as if there is a giant beehive hidden in the valley. Through the car window, you can see that each greenhouse is a blue rectangular iron house with a white roof on top, which is the same color as the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Mr. Guo, the person in charge of the mine, is Wu Gang’s junior high school classmate. He refers to the management methods of traditional gold mines and has a very detailed system management for the mine, with strict group monitoring management, work attendance system, and factory visit management system.

Wearing safety gloves and swiping the card to enter the door, a small heat wave hits you in the face. Thousands of mining machines are running 24 hours a day, converting electrical energy into heat energy, so the factory has built a water cooling system and an air cooling system. Two huge fans are deployed inside the shed to blow the hot air to the water-cooled wall, which is a huge iron wire curtain. Cold water flows from top to bottom. Water droplets hang on each hole of the iron wire curtain. The fan blows the hot air to the iron curtain to accelerate the evaporation of the water droplets, thereby taking away the heat in the room and keeping the indoor temperature below 38 degrees. At this time, the beginning of autumn has passed outside, and the temperature is only 22 degrees. When you push the door in, the temperature difference of 15 degrees still makes you feel the heat wave.

The author stands in the mine in bright clothes and furious horse

There are four rows of shelves in front of me, which are filled with neatly arranged mining machines. These mining machines mainly come from three mining machine manufacturers (Ant, Avalon, and Fried Cat). China is currently a major Bitcoin mining country. It is rumored that 70% of Bitcoin is produced in China, and the mining machines produced by Bitcoin mining machine manufacturers account for 80% of the world. The cost of mining machines is the main cost of mining. The price of each p computing power is about 2 million yuan. The global Bitcoin computing power is 380p, and the cost of mining machines alone is worth 760 million. Another major cost is the cost of electricity, so most mining farms are built around power stations. The motors of this power station also generate electricity 24 hours a day, which is the source of the roaring sound heard in the car at the beginning.

Workers in the mine shed are checking the operation of the mining machine

Different types of mining machines, without emotions, love or hate, are constantly performing hash calculations in the cyber world, mining the bitcoins that Satoshi Nakamoto has buried in time. The green light flickers neatly in the darkness, as if creating another time and space. The workers in the mines do not need to hold shovels or carry backpacks. Unlike traditional mines, they do not participate in direct mining work. They only need to maintain the mining machines and keep them running normally, allowing the mining machines to mine. When I asked Wu Gang whether human computing can mine bitcoins, he replied that in theory it is possible. The hash algorithm can also be calculated with paper and pen, but the computing power of billions of people in the world is not as good as that of a mining machine.

Group photo of the Bitcoin wallet team and the Bitcoin mining team

If gold is unevenly distributed in space, then Bitcoin is also unevenly distributed in time. Of course, the former is God's random spreading, and the latter is the precise design of mankind. South Africa's gold reserves account for 37.5% of the world's gold reserves. Coincidentally, the Bitcoin mined in the four years from 2009 to 2013 accounted for 37.5% of the 140-year mining period. I wonder if there is a mysterious connection. "Bitcoin is gold in the form of time. It transmits value on the Internet. In the Internet age, everything is connected to the Internet, and the cash exchange does not need physical properties." Sun Xiaoxiao is another person in charge of the mine. He is a believer in Bitcoin. He has been starting a business in the Bitcoin industry for three years. He has been engaged in the sales of Bitcoin peripheral products and mining machines, and now he is the person in charge of the mine.

Sun Xiaoxiao has ten workers in the mine, who are young and energetic, mostly born in the 1990s. "Twenty thousand mining machines weigh ten kilograms every day, and we move them off the trucks one by one and then move them back on." The person who spoke to him was Xiao Gao, a local from Kangding, a Tibetan who knows Tibetan but not Tibetan script. Three months ago, my colleague Eric serialized the life in the mine on a foreign website. When foreign friends saw it, they immediately asked whether we hired local ethnic minorities and whether we created job opportunities for them. Xiao Gao was the best answer, and of course another reason was that he was very strong.