Americans are heating their homes with bitcoin this winter \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Americans are heating their homes with bitcoin this winter www.cnbc.com/2025/11/16/bitcoin-crypto-mining-home-heating-energy-bills.html

236 sats \ 4 comments \ @k00b 6h bitcoin_Mining

There's some typical "expert" FUD in here - you'll never mine a full block. The real gem is at the end:

The crypto-heated future may be unfolding in the town of Challis, Idaho, where Cade Peterson’s company, Softwarm, is repurposing bitcoin heat to ward off the winter.

Several shops and businesses in town are experimenting with Softwarm’s rigs to mine and heat. At TC Car, Truck and RV Wash, Peterson says, the owner was spending $25 a day to heat his wash bays to melt snow and warm up the water.

“Traditional heaters would consume energy with no returns. They installed bitcoin miners and it produces more money in bitcoin than it costs to run,” Peterson said. Meanwhile, an industrial concrete company is offsetting its $1,000 a month bill to heat its 2,500-gallon water tank by heating it with bitcoin.

Peterson has heated his own home for two-and-a-half years using bitcoin mining equipment and believes that heat will power almost everything in the future. “You will go to Home Depot in a few years and buy a water heater with a data port on it and your water will be heated with bitcoin,” Peterson said.

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200 sats \ 1 reply \ @justin_shocknet 4h

I ultimately think this is where the majority of hash rate ends in the coming years, where heat is the primary output and the mining fees are just a rebate on otherwise fixed costs.

The institutionalized mining is unsustainable, they're already pivoting to AI in many cases, the arb has largely come out of stranded energy, and each halving reduces the yield of provenance coins that institutional investors pay a premium for (no potential link to "illicit" activity)

This will be good for decentralization, and hopefully mitigates some of the risk of mining incentives changes should covenants manage to get rammed through.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 4h

I've never shilled a ref link but that changes now, just happens to be a fellow Wolf co.

https://heatbit.com/?ref=JUSTINSHOCKNET

If you live where electricity is outrageously high relative to oil/natgas/wood heat it still doesn't make economic sense, but if you already have an electric heat source it does.

77 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 4h

I've been thinking about different business models for bitcoin heating businesses.

As a conventional business, the upfront cost to customers is really high for a general public that isn't exactly orange-pilled. What I'm imagining are "financing" possibilities that pay the company back in mined bitcoin before transferring control to the customer.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 4h

There's a solar company that does something like that which might provide some insight in how to structure the arrangement.

edit: looks like they may have pivoted. website no longer up. x account is cold.