How to Mine Bitcoin: 6 Bizarre Methods

Hello, this is Bitpunk. Today I'd like to talk about different ways to mine Bitcoin. When most people hear "mining," they probably think only of mining rigs or computers. But if you set profitability aside, there are more ways to mine Bitcoin than you might expect. That said, few of them are actually very useful, so please just read this for fun.

Bitcoin Mining Method 1: Mining with Wasted Gas

A company called Upstream Data runs mobile mining data centers. They reported that by using the gas that oil companies throw away, they could limit their carbon footprint while earning roughly 15 times the revenue. They do it through facilities like the one below. Of all the mining methods I'll introduce, this is the most plausible-looking alternative.

Bitcoin Mining Method 2: Mining with a Satellite Computer

Back in the 1960s, there was the Apollo Guidance Computer, which the United States used to land its rockets on the Moon. At the time it was a computer packed with excellent technology, but these days it's no longer of any use. Even so, someone tried mining Bitcoin with it. Its hash rate was about 10.3h/s, which means mining a single Bitcoin block would take about as long as the age of the universe.

Bitcoin Mining Method 3: Pen and Paper

This one probably surprises you. You can actually try mining Bitcoin with pen and paper. One round of the algorithm takes 16 minutes and 45 seconds, and the hash rate is said to be 0.67 h/d (per day). The video below shows someone attempting to mine Bitcoin with pen and paper.

Bitcoin Mining Method 4: Nuclear Reactors

The fourth method is nuclear reactors. A single nuclear power plant reportedly produces 5.1 TWh per year, which is about 10% of the Bitcoin network's annual consumption. That's an enormous figure. The exact approach isn't known, but I suppose the idea is that this power could be used to run Bitcoin mining rigs?

Bitcoin Mining Method 5: Mining in a Mosque

A mosque? Yes, that's right. An Islamic place of worship. It may seem a bit strange, but mosques actually receive free electricity. Since the government supplies them with power for free, some businesspeople thought they were the perfect place to mine Bitcoin. The government does crack down on this, of course, but there have reportedly been cases in Iran where mosques were caught actually mining Bitcoin. On top of that, there have also been cases of mining being caught at Russian churches. Of course, it doesn't seem to have been the worshippers who did it; the main culprits appear to be entrepreneurs who exploited this loophole.

Bitcoin Mining Method 6: Tomato Farms

Last up is tomato farms. Running crypto mining rigs generates heat, and some businesspeople recycle that heat. Strictly speaking, Bitcoin isn't being mined at the tomato farm; rather, the heat is put to use by the tomato farm, so you could say it isn't really a mining method. Still, when profitability is low, using the heat like this? might help a little.

That wraps up our look at six ways to mine Bitcoin, or that can be connected to mining. So why does it seem smarter to just invest in cloud mining with peace of mind, or pay up and buy Bitcoin on an exchange? (lol)

For reference, Bitcoin is awarded as the reward for solving a problem made up of numbers between 0 and 4,294,967,296. Currently, 12.5 bitcoins are awarded per block, and after the 2020 halving, this will drop to 6.25 bitcoins.

That concludes our look at six ways to mine Bitcoin.