Tesla has delivered four Megapacks to a giant new Bitcoin mining facility in Texas that is going to be the first to be powered by the automaker’s solar and batteries.
Last month, the project was announced as a partnership between Tesla, Blockstream, and Jack Dorsey’s Blocks (formerly Square).
The idea is to build a new 30 Petahashes per second open-source Bitcoin mining facility powered by a 3.8 MW solar farm and 12 MWh Megapack system provided by Tesla.
Blockstream raised ~$40 million for the project through a token, which enables people to technically invest in the Bitcoin mining operation powered by Tesla Megapacks and solar by trading the token on Bitfinex.
The project is moving quickly as Tesla has now delivered the four Megapacks to the mining facility:
Tesla’s involvement in the project is also interesting within the context of the company adopting the cryptocurrency in its own business.
Early in 2021, Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. Shortly after, the automaker started accepting the cryptocurrency as payment on new vehicles.
However, a few days later, Tesla took a step back with crypto by removing the Bitcoin payment option. The company noted concerns over the energy needs of the Bitcoin network:
Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
This is a concern that many Tesla community members shared when Tesla first announced its Bitcoin investment, and many were angered by the fact that the company didn’t think about it in the first place.
At the time, Tesla noted that they were not selling their stake in Bitcoin, and that they planned to resume taking Bitcoin payments once the network shows a higher mix of renewable energy. Last summer, CEO Elon Musk said that he believes Tesla will resume taking Bitcoin payment as he sees improvements in the energy mix of Bitcoin mining. That has yet to happen, but Tesla is now directly involved in helping power Bitcoin mining with clean energy through this project in Texas.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
