Throughout 2023, bitcoin’s average network hashrate increased by more than 100% from 248 EH/s in December 2022 to 507 EH/s a year later. This immense volume of hardware investment was bolstered by the expansion of power capacities, securing the network worldwide.
Based on public data and information, TheMinerMag has identified the energized bitcoin mining power capacities in North America operated by 20 public mining companies and 2 private operators. In total, these companies boasted an operating capacity of 5.42 GW across the U.S. and Canada with about 50% in Texas.
According to Lee Bratcher, president of the industry nonprofit Texas Blockchain Council, bitcoin mining operations now account for 95% of the so-called Large Flexible Loads (LFLs) within Texas. They form a foundation during extreme weather in answering to the curtailment demand by ERCOT, the Texas grid operator.
ERCOT began a voluntary power curtailment program for LFL customers in early 2023, incentivizing them to lower power consumption during peak energy demand. The purpose was to strengthen the grid in extreme weather conditions.
The identified capacities of mining companies in Texas climbed to 2.7 GW as of Dec. 31, from about 2.4 GW as of Jun. 30, based on TheMinerMag’s analysis of public data online. The increment comes from Applied Digital’s energization of its Garden City facility during the second half and the capacity breakdown of Celsius’ mining assets managed by Hut 8 that became publicly available information.
The companies included in the data set are Argo, Applied Digital, Bitdeer, Bitfarms, Bit Mining, Cipher, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Digihost, Galaxy Digital, Greenidge, Griid, HIVE, Hut8, Iris Energy, Marathon, Mawson, NYDIG, Riot, Rhodium, Stronghold, and Terawulf.
Notable publicly traded operators in Texas include Applied Digital, Galaxy, Bitdeer, Cipher, Core Scientific, Hut 8 (self-mining and managed service for Celsius), Riot, Marathon, and Iris Energy. Marathon is the latest addition to the crowd as it bought a 300 MW site in Granbury, Texas.
Separately, Genesis Digital Assets boasts a total power capacity of 450 MW across four sites in the Lone Star state. However, since it’s a privately owned operation and does not provide regular production updates, it is unclear to what extent the 450 MW capacity is utilized or operational. Hence, it is not included in the map below.
