Iceland’s most stable region for BTC mining, cool climate adds benefits: Arcane Researcher

Iceland, due to its cool climate, has enormous potential to be one of the most lucrative Bitcoin mining hotspots in the world. The European nation, which offers electricity at affordable prices, has a favorable climate to produce natural cooling from BTC mining operations, which are infamous for producing too much heat and carbon emissions. Jaran Mellerud, a BTC mining researcher at Arcane Research, called Iceland the most “stable” BTC mining region in the world.

BTC mining operations have been taking place in Iceland for ten years. Regulatory watchdogs in the country have also expressed no issues regarding BTC mining operations, making Iceland a fairly stable jurisdiction for such operations.

The nation, inhabited by only around 370,000 people, has become the largest producer of hash rates per capita, according to a report by CryptoPotato citing Mellerud’s findings.

The BTC mining industry in Iceland contributes 1.3% of the global BTC hash rate production with an electricity consumption of 120 megawatts.

Hash rate is a metric that shows how many calculations can be made per second. These complex algorithm calculations on advanced computers enable the BTC mining process.

According to Coinwarz, the current BTC mining hashrate stands at 140.00 Terahashes per second (Th/s) which consumes 3,010.00 watts of power.

Meanwhile, the Icelandic power system is completely independent and has no connection to global grids. The nation generates all of its electricity from renewable resources. According to the Icelandic government, 73% of its electricity is generated from hydroelectricity, while 27% is extracted from geothermal energy.

This protects BTC miners from losing business due to international electricity price inflation.

Electricity costs in several parts of the world have been rising lately, which has had a big impact on crypto mining activity around the world. According to a Bloomberg report, Bitcoin miners have lost over $1 billion (about Rs 8,200 crore) due to rising energy costs and the recent crypto crash in 2022.