Skip to Content
Blockchain

Why Canada Looks like the Next Bitcoin-Mining Haven

January 12, 2018

Some of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency-mining operations are eyeing a move to Canada, tempted by cheap electricity and a cool climate.

The news: According to CoinDesk, a campaign by electrical utility Hydro-Quebec to entice companies into building data centers in the province ended up tempting numerous cryptocurrency-mining operations looking to move from other countries. Reuters also reports that Bitmain, one of China’s largest Bitcoin-mining firms, is looking at sites in Quebec and Manitoba.

The backstory: Around two-thirds of the world’s Bitcoin-mining capacity is located in China. Some operations are now plotting moves to other countries, amid what could be a broad crackdown on Bitcoin mining.

Why Canada? Mining rigs generate lots of heat, making colder environments ideal. Besides that, Hydro-Quebec offers some of the cheapest electricity in North America, and Canada’s overall political stability doesn’t hurt, either.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language

For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.

Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?

An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.

Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death

Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.