Compass Mining Publishes Guidelines for Mining Cryptocurrencies at Home

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Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining is long tagged as a venture that is only profitable for institutional miners. The belief is that unless a miner has hundreds of mining machines in a specified location with access to cheap energy sources, the venture will be next to impossible. 

Drawing on these myths, Compass Mining, an American Bitcoin mining company has published a Guideline that will help retail individual miners to set up their mining rigs at home. The new mining guideline from Compass can be accessed for free, and the firm said it is its own way of contributing to the democratization plans for the Bitcoin mining industry.

Compass Mining hopes that with the guide, anyone will be able to set up their machines and take notes of the details about heat control, electricity, and power management as well as the software requirements.

“There are so many stories of people getting miners and failing because they underestimate electrical requirements, heat or noise – or really all three. Our goal with this guide was to create a single resource accessible to everyone, rather than leave information scattered throughout the internet in places that some people don’t visit,” said Whit Gibbs, CEO of Compass Mining, adding that;

“At Compass, we want to help everyone get set up and hashing. We think this guide will help many people by enabling them to overcome common obstacles and providing them with realistic expectations for their mining effort. This guide is for both newcomers, and for anyone who wants to improve their home mining setup. We aim to be a trusted resource for the community, helping everyone succeed.”

The guide publication comes days after the company revealed that it is trying to sell off its mining equipment that is stranded in Russia in order not to incur sanctions from the United States Department of the Treasury. As reported by Blockchain.News, the mining gears listed for sale are worth $30 million, and the firm plans to send the accrued funds to all of its customers.

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Green miner Bitfarms’ production up 50% after China ban, as Compass goes nuclear

Publicly traded North American Bitcoin mining company, Bitfarms, has doubled its productivity this year amid the Chinese crackdown and resultant miner migration.

The Canadian hydroelectricity mining outfit claims to be currently powering an estimated 1.5% of the entire Bitcoin network with more than 99% renewable green energy.

In a July 14 production update, the firm revealed that it had mined 1,357 BTC in the first six months of 2021, adding that this was the largest number of BTC mined in North America as reported by publicly-traded miners.

It has projected the production of more than 400 BTC for the month of July, which would be double the 199 it mined in January, and more than 50% over June’s 365 BTC mined.

Bitfarms, which was founded in 2017, also stated that more than 95% of its production this year, or 1,445 BTC, has been deposited into custody as of July 12.

Earlier this month, Bitcoin experienced its largest difficulty drop in history due to the mining crackdown in China and resultant closure of operations. BitInfoCharts has reported a 42.5% decline in difficulty since late May with more than half of that occurring this month.

This has resulted in Bitfarms producing significantly higher quantities of BTC at a lower cost per unit produced, the report added. The productivity boost did not prevent company stock taking a hit in late June as reported by Cointelegraph.

Bitfarms founder and CEO, Emiliano Grodzki, stated that Beijing’s Bitcoin mining embargo has been good news for the company which has nearly doubled its market share as a result.

“Reports indicate that the ban on crypto mining in China and the exodus of mining rigs seeking new hosting may take an extended period of time to resolve. Bitfarms is well-positioned to take advantage of the significantly improved economic opportunity.”

The company has already begun that process with the installation of 1,500 Bitcoin miners from MicroBT in its Magog, Quebec, data center, adding 120 PH/s of total production in June 2021.

Related: Nic Carter takes aim at claims Bitcoin is an environmental disaster

Compass points to nuclear power

In a separate mining industry development, North American mining and hosting firm Compass Mining has signed a 20-year deal with nuclear fission startup Oklo which will supply the firm with 150 megawatts of energy.

According to Compass CEO, Whit Gibbs, the first Oklo mini-reactors will be deployed in 2023 or 2024 and the costs will be “considerably” lower than the energy sources firm currently uses.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, nuclear reactors do not produce air pollution or carbon dioxide while operating, however, the major environmental concern related to them is the creation of radioactive waste.

Compass is also in talks with the crypto-friendly city of Miami about getting power from the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant according to a Nasdaq report.

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Compass Taps Oklo for Nuclear Bitcoin Mining Plans

Key Takeaways

  • Compass is partnering with Oklo to mine Bitcoin using nuclear energy.
  • Oklo has plans to use “microreactors” to provide energy for mining farms.
  • Several other mining and energy companies have recently taken steps to mine Bitcoin from renewables, suggesting that Bitcoin could have a more sustainable future ahead.




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Compass is planning to use nuclear energy to mine Bitcoin. 

Compass Joins Oklo for Nuclear Energy Play

Compass Mining is taking steps to start using nuclear energy. 

The Bitcoin mining firm, which lets customers buy and host their own mining rig at a facility around the world, has partnered with nuclear energy company Oklo in hopes of mining Bitcoin from alternative energy sources. 

Compass currently has a range of mining facilities in locations like the United States and Canada. It also ran some of its operations in China, though the country’s recent crackdown on Bitcoin mining has meant that most mining companies have moved elsewhere. 


By partnering with Oklo, Compass is hoping to leverage the energy firm’s “microreactors”—smaller-scale plants that could generate enough energy to power a Bitcoin mining farm. 

Oklo is based in California. It received a license for its advanced fission technologies last year. 

The partnership is due to launch “in the early 2020s,” with Oklo set to provide 150 megawatts of clean power. Whit Gibbs, the firm’s CEO, said that the costs of mining would be “considerably lower” than any other source Compass currently uses.

Compass’ move to embrace alternative energy sources for its mining operations comes as Bitcoin faces scrutiny over the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining. Elon Musk helped fuel the concerns surrounding Bitcoin’s energy usage when he announced that Tesla would stop receiving Bitcoin payments until there was a significant change in the amount of Bitcoin mined from renewable energy sources. 



According to Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the Bitcoin network uses about 69.85 TWh/year, which is about the same as Austria and Colombia. While Bitcoin proponents argue that a lot of that energy comes from renewable sources, Cambridge’s 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study published in Sept. 2020 estimated that 61% of the energy came from non-renewables like coal. Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin Mining Council, meanwhile, has argued that mining is 56% sustainable. 

Although Compass is the first mining firm Oklo has partnered with, the appetite for nuclear energy solutions for Bitcoin mining appears to be stronger than ever. On Monday, Energy Harbor Corp announced a partnership with Standard Power to provide nuclear energy for Bitcoin mining in Ohio. Talen Energy will also begin Bitcoin mining at a power plant it owns in Pennsylvania. 

Moreover, Mayor Francis Suarez is reportedly offering Miami’s Turkey Point Nuclear Plant to several mining farms including Compass as a way of making use of cheap renewable energy. While the market is still showing signs of uncertainty amid the ESG concerns, regulatory fears and exhaustion among buyers, it seems that the mining solutions in the pipeline could bode well for Bitcoin’s future. 

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As Bitcoin Mining Hits All-Time Highs, Access To ASICs Is Key

Like many providers in the space, international bitcoin mining services company Compass Mining is on a roll. With the success of BTC and rising mining revenues — now at an all-time high of $60 million per day — this rapidly-growing startup finds itself squarely in the middle of a bull run.

Founded in October 2020, Compass has been able to capitalize on a growing demand for mining services, particularly through access to new ASICs in a very tight mining equipment market. In a news release from early March, Compass described itself as “the first two-sided bitcoin hosting marketplace,” meaning that it works with both prospective miners helping them get established and with existing hosting facilities to find the best fit to fill their vacancies.

The release also announced that Compass had secured $1.7 million in seed funding in a round led by Galaxy Digital, with participation from other stalwarts in the space, including CoinShares and CoinGecko.

“March was the best month yet for miners @compass_mining!” Compass CEO Whit Gibbs recently tweeted. “13.964 #btc mined, up 114% from February. 112 [petahashes] contributed to Bitcoin’s network security.”

Echoing the enthusiasm and adding some detail to what is driving this growth in the bitcoin mining industry through an April 4 newsletter, Upstream Data’s Steve Barbour noted how lucrative bitcoin mining has become:

“…the bitcoin price started appreciating and it has since increased approximately 600% (since Oct 2020) and the difficulty has not even doubled. The result is a marked increase in revenue for bitcoin miners everywhere,” he wrote. “..I am a bit surprised at how slow the difficulty and hash rate has been to react to the price, but this is likely due to the significant shortage in the semiconductor industry combined with existing mining hardware failure (hardware breaking). With no relief in the semiconductor supply chain in sight, I would guess bitcoin mining will continue to be extremely profitable for quite some time to come.”

The Fight For New Mining Equipment

Bitcoin mining has become so competitive and profitable that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people wanting to mine BTC to access the ASICs needed to power a profitable mining operation.

As a “two-sided marketplace,” one of Compass’s secrets to success is its ability to acquire new ASICs for clients in such a challenging market. It’s easier for a larger provider like Compass to deal with ASIC suppliers like Bitmain, Whatsminer and Canaan, which are likely to prioritize bigger customers like Compass, rather than smaller mining operations.

Compass has been able to secure new ASICs, even as the demand for silicon-based chips has become a problem affecting manufacturing enterprises around the globe. A Compass team on the ground in Southeast Asia, including COO Thomas Heller, negotiates directly with manufacturers.

In a direct message on Twitter, Gibbs told Bitcoin Magazine that its work with ASIC manufacturers is “very relationship based” and it is fortunate that Heller “has great ties to Chinese distributors from his time working in China”.

In its first two months, the company sold $11.4 million worth of mining machines to clients, per its March news release.

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