After launching its services in Pennsylvania, the first 100% nuclear-powered Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility in the United States, run by the cryptocurrency mining company TeraWulf, is already reaping impressive results and recording constant progress while continuing to ramp up its operations.
Indeed, the Bitcoin mining center Nautilus has completed March with approximately 9,200 energized miners, contributing to TeraWulf’s average operating hash rate of 3 EH/s for the month, which represents a 50% month-over-month increase compared to February, according to a press release from April 6.
Crypto mining in numbers
Shortly before the above press release, on April 5, the company also posted a video proudly showcasing the inside of the Nautilus nuclear-powered Bitcoin mining facility.
Specifically, the company is currently running two crypto mining operations – at Nautilus Cryptomine and its wholly-owned Lake Mariner facility in New York, which largely relies on hydro and nuclear power (91% zero-carbon energy). Together, these two establishments have achieved an average production rate of 7.5 BTC per day, self-mining 233 Bitcoin in March.
In terms of the value of Bitcoin mined by the company’s facilities, this means that about $6.49 million worth of the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset was produced in a single month or about $208,973 per day, taking into account the current price of Bitcoin, which at press time stood at $27,863.
Ramping up zero-carbon operations
Commenting on the results, Chief Strategy Officer at TeraWulf, Kerri Langlais, said that the company aimed to raise the mining capacity to 5.5 EH/s in the second quarter, as well as planning an additional 50 MW of capacity for each of the mining facilities:
“In addition to quickly ramping up 50 MW of zero-carbon capacity at the Nautilus facility, construction continues at Lake Mariner, where we have another 50 MW of capacity scheduled to go online in a matter of weeks. Once Nautilus is fully ramped and Building 2 at Lake Mariner is energized, TeraWulf’s total hash rate is expected to increase to 5.5 EH/s.”
It is also worth mentioning that Nautilus was first announced in August 2021 as a joint project between TeraWulf and zero-carbon data center manufacturer Cumulus Data, a subsidiary of an independent power producer Talen Energy. In January 2023, they completed the shell for its first data center, powered by a 2.5 GW nuclear power station, as Finbold reported at the time.
Meanwhile, the construction and success of both mining facilities represent a powerful argument against the rampant criticism that Proof-of-Work (PoW) technology, used for mining digital assets like Bitcoin, is a danger to the environment and climate due to its carbon emissions, which has led to increased White House scrutiny.
