Why Bitmain Is Building the World’s Largest Bitcoin Mine in Rural Texas

The Takeaway

• Bitmain, the world’s largest maker of bitcoin-mining computers, chose an old Alcoa aluminum-smelting plant in Rockdale, Texas, for a new bitcoin mine.
• The Beijing company says the plant has an initial power size of 25 megawatts but will be expanded to 50 megawatts and potentially 300 megawatts.
• Texas has an abundance of power resources, so the new plant is unlikely to affect local electricity prices, say officials.

ROCKDALE, TEXAS – In the concrete-and-iron shell of a mostly-abandoned Alcoa aluminum smelter, Chinese and Canadian executives in business suits mingled with local residents in cowboy hats and baseball caps.

They assembled, just outside the town of Rockdale, in the central-Texas countryside, to celebrate the opening of a new bitcoin-mining plant constructed by Beijing-based Bitmain, the world’s largest manufacturer of computers designed to mine cryptocurrency.

County Judge Steve Young, the top elected official in rural Milam County,…