Iceland moving away from crypto mining to ‘pure blockchain’ operations

Iceland is steadily shifting away from crypto mining and focusing its facilities on “pure blockchain” operations, according to industry insiders.

Aside from naturally cold climate that is favorable to ASIC generators, Iceland offers cost-efficient renewable energy sources like geothermal or hydroelectric. Due to these factors, many international crypto mining operations have set up shop in the European country. In fact, Iceland has been hosting one of the world’s largest crypto mining farms, whose operator, Genesis Mining, is reportedly the largest energy consumer in the country.

However, industry insiders in the country told Red Herring that the frenzy around BTC mining was “not as crazy as it was a year ago,” when the crypto’s price reached its all-time high. Come 2018, however, the price fell to as low as $6,400 from highs of $19,000. With such a decrease in price, many Icelanders speculated that this would lead to the collapse of the local crypto industry. Moreover, the dramatic Bitcoin heist that saw 600 Bitcoin mining units stolen caused a lot of panic in the cryptocurrency industry.

Halldór Jörgensson, chairman of the Borealis Data Center in Reykjavik, told the news outlet, that the current demand for crypto and blockchain facilities in the country has been “shifting more towards the pure blockchain business,” instead of focusing only on crypto mining activities.

According to Jörgensson, “We strongly believe that when the whole bitcoin thing has settled down to some kind of a level that is not as crazy as it was a year ago… We believe there’s another wave that crops up that will utilize these infrastructures that have been built up during the bitcoin mining phase.”

The report comes on the heels of Bitfury announcing its new ASIC chip, the Bitfury Clarke, which the firm plans to integrate into its existing crypto mining hardware—from its mining servers and BlockBoxes to its crypto mining facilities in countries including Iceland, Canada, Norway, and the Republic of Georgia..