Cryptomining Companies Consider Broadening Scope
As the price cryptocurrencies drop, some miners are searching for alternative uses for massive data centers they've built.
Harry Pokrandt spent the last year scouring the earth for real estate with two main characteristics. He needed cold weather, to keep his computer servers cool, and cheap electricity, to keep them running 24 hours a day. Pokrandt’s company, Hive Blockchain Technologies, filled up a Cold War-era helicopter hangar in Sweden with servers, then constructed a building of its own in Norway and filled that one up, too.
Hive is one of the world's most prominent cryptomining operations, which means its servers solve equations to verify transactions for digital forms of money like bitcoin or ethereum. It began selling shares to the public on a Canadian stock exchange in September 2017, and used its expanding fortunes to buy out smaller competitors.