A week after I visited the last bitcoin mine in northeast China, I was able to arrange a trip to a larger, even more secretive operation. These exclusive photos provide a glimpse inside one of China’s largest bitcoin mines.
Arriving at the site, I did not expect it to be so busy. There were men in hard hats and work crews mulling about, and vehicles coming and going. There were cement trucks and lorries hauling steal beams, along with massive spools of industrial sized wiring. This wasn’t a repurposed factory like the previous mine I visited… this was an entire facility being constructed just for bitcoin mining! The site contained four large warehouses, each decked out in the standard white wall/blue roof décor that seems to be the running standard for Chinese industrial use. Each warehouse measured about 150 meters in length, by perhaps 20 meters wide… that’s around 3,000 square meters (32,000 ft2) In addition to the four standing warehouses, there was a steel frame that had already been erected and was awaiting completion, and crews of workers were busy building a foundation for yet another warehouse next to that one.
Two additional plots had been measured out and marked with posts and rope. That’s four completed warehouses, two under construction, and two more waiting to begin construction. I was asked not to post photos of the construction. The mine operators told me that each warehouse took fifteen days to construct, and an additional ten days to fill up with hardware and get it all hashing away. The concrete was still drying on some of the buildings.
