Bitcoin Mining Startup Raises $13 Million to Turn Trash Into BTC

Nodal Power has secured a substantial $13 million funding round to continue converting methane gas produced by landfills into electricity, which is then dispatched to local electricity grids as renewable power.

Not all of that energy will be sold, however. Some of it will be used directly by the firm to secure the blockchain through clean Bitcoin mining.

“Bitcoin mining is a secondary tool we use when grid economics aren't as favorable,” said Matthew Jones, Nodal Power’s co-founder and chief operating officer, told Decrypt. “We currently only do Bitcoin mining in our data centers.”

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas resulting from organic matter decomposition in landfills, largely contributes to global warming. That’s because research suggests that it is 25 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Nodal Power captures and repurposes this leaked methane gas by combusting it in a generator to produce power. This reduces carbon emissions when compared to simply flaring off the methane, making a profit from an otherwise wasted resource while keeping the atmosphere cleaner.

Currently, Nodal Power operates two mining data centers in the US, with plans for a third in early 2024. The first and largest site, located in the “southwest US,” primarily exports electricity to the local power utility, while the second site, situated in the “mountainous western region,” powers 500 miners for 40 petahashes per second (PH/s) of capacity.

The third site, backed by the $13 million funding, will mirror the second site in terms of power, mining capacity, and location.

“Probably noteworthy that our largest facility is the smallest Bitcoin deployment because a majority of the time we dispatch the electricity to the grid instead of using it ourselves,” said Jones.

While most of that power is then sold to the grid like a “traditional power plant,” practical considerations force 75% of landfills to use that methane on site, according to Daniel Batten, co-founder of CH4 Capital. Batten’s $400 million fund invests in companies that intend to use landfill gas to mine Bitcoin.

A recent KPMG report suggested that the volume of flared methane in the U.S. and Canada could potentially power the entire Bitcoin network.