Bitcoin began in the bedroom. Initially intrigued by a mathematical curiosity, the first miners used spare compute on personal gaming rigs to unlock worthless amounts of virtual currency.
In the following years, however, as the cost of mining grew rapidly, and the value of the coin grew even faster, it would soon leave the home. An entire cottage industry sprung up, consuming as much power as nations, relying on custom silicon to chase digital coins.
This growth mirrored a similar explosive build-out in the traditional data center sector, but was always seen as separate from the Internet’s infrastructure – a shadow data center network for a shadow financial system.
This feature…
