One of the biggest issues around cryptocurrency mining is the amount of energy needed to mine tokens. Crypto mining requires a lot of electricity consumption by the high-powered computers that mine tokens, and this has led to concerns around how sustainable the practice is, particularly with the rising popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In this regard, it is encouraging that some Canadian companies are coming together to develop a mining facility in Canada that will have renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar partially powering their operations.
The blockchain company Neptune Digital Assets has signed a letter of intent with the mining firm Link Global to develop this facility in Alberta, Canada. This will be a joint venture, with both firms splitting costs and revenues on a 50-50 basis. The facility will be a 5-megawatt site, with solar, wind and natural gas powering operations along with more conventional energy sources. An agreement is expected to be reached by early April, with construction beginning soon afterwards.
Cale Moodie, Neptune’s CEO, has spoken about the firm’s ambition to become a major player in sustainable crypto mining, and aiming to use carbon credits and carbon-neutral mining practices to get there, as there is likely to be growing pressure all over the world for crypto mining to be more sustainable. This is an encouraging sign, and could well be taken as proof of concept for the rest of the mining industry to slowly get on board with using renewable sources of energy. Crypto mining has been heavily criticised for the high amount of energy that is used in the mining process, and therefore there has been significant opposition to crypto becoming more prevalent in economies all around the world, due to the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. Firms such as Neptune and Link Global coming together to work on such projects is needed, and there is likely to be a surge of sustainable crypto mining projects in the near future, especially as investors and traders are all quite conscious about the social and environmental impact of the companies and sectors they invest in.
This is the second partnership between these two firms after they had announced an agreement earlier this year which signalled Neptune’s entry into the Bitcoin mining space. Link Global would purchase and run 1,500 ASIC machines on behalf of Neptune, which would produce around 0.7 BTC per day at current mining rates. This would take advantage of Link Global’s expertise in the crypto mining space, and allow this venture to operate with lower costs than if Neptune had decided to go in on its own.
These partnerships with Link Global show Neptune’s determination to be a part of the Bitcoin mining sector, which will help expand its footprint in the cryptocurrency sector. With a stated aim of being a leader in the space across the digital asset ecosystem, including mining, tokens, blockchain technologies and decentralized finance (DeFi), Neptune is moving fast to ensure that it can be an influential part of the cryptocurrency system in Canada, and then slowly expand to the rest of the world.