Cincinnati, Ohio is probably not the first city that comes to mind when thinking about cities where Bitcoin mining technology is being developed. Yet because of a new Bitcoin mining company, GRIID, the midwestern city is quickly becoming a new site for the virtual currency’s mining to take place.

Founded by Miami University graduate Trey Kelly, GRIID is an up-and-coming Bitcoin mining company that is setting up camp in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general has taken the world by storm in recent years. Advertised as anonymous, free of any governmental/banking control, and the future of currencies, Bitcoin has become a place for investors to look when they are looking to put their money in places other than the stock market.

Nobody really knows who the actual inventor of Bitcoin is, but its origins can be traced back to the pseudonym, “Satoshi Nakamoto,” whose identity has yet to be revealed to this day.

Although the technology was being developed as early as 2007, Bitcoin was priced at $1 in 2011; fast forward to 2017, and one Bitcoin that was worth just $1 six years earlier was now worth over $13,000.

Bitcoin kept making headlines because stories from across the world began to surface of people who had bought Bitcoin when its worth was very little and now had fortunes sitting in accounts that held the cryptocurrency. However, because of the time gap, some had forgotten their passwords at this point, and for one San Francisco man, $250 million worth of Bitcoin was sitting in his account.

Now, with new cyber developments like the metaverse becoming more and more mainstream, the race to acquire Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is heating up.

There are pretty much two ways that one could go about obtaining Bitcoin: Purchasing it directly, which would set the purchaser back over $45,000 for a single Bitcoin as of February 10th, or by using a process called Bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin mining is an extremely complicated process to say the least. However, an appealing aspect of using this method is that those who mine Bitcoin are not required to directly purchase it. Instead, the hardware that they use acquires it after solving intricate computation problems, and the Bitcoin is then rewarded for solving them.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin mining is far from being a cost-free method of obtaining the cryptocurrency.

Most Bitcoin mining operations take place in large remote warehouses, which alone cost a considerable amount of money. Bitcoin mining equipment will cost one about $1,000-$2,000 if one chooses to go with a simpler choice, but the machines can cost anywhere up to $10,000-$12,000 if one decides to purchase high-end machines.

According to minerdaily.com, the average cost to mine a single Bitcoin is somewhere between $7,000-$11,000, so as is clear, running a Bitcoin mining operation is a very costly job.

A controversy that has arisen regarding Bitcoin mining is the amount of energy that the process takes up.

In September, The New York Times released a report that gave perspective to just how much energy Bitcoin mining operations use.

According to the article, in August 2021, the amount of energy required to mine a single Bitcoin is the equivalent to the amount of energy required to power a house for nine years. Astonishingly, the process also consumes more energy annually than the entire country of Finland.

The article goes on to raise a question that many people across the world are wondering: could it be greener?

This is where GRIID Infrastructure’s plan to revolutionize how Bitcoin is mined comes in.

According the company’s website, the organization says that they “procure low-cost, carbon-free energy to build, manage, and operate a growing portfolio of vertically-integrated bitcoin mining facilities.”

GRIID recently entered into a merger with Adit EdTech Acquisition Corp., and the company reports that they plan to bring in a revenue of $1.6 billion USD in 2023.

The combined company is valued at $3.3 billion USD, and GRIID will be going public on the NYSE under “GRDI.”

Carbon-free Bitcoin mining seems to be a business venture that many investors will be looking into in the near future.

The energy required to mine Bitcoin has dramatically increased over the past decade, and the amount of energy required to power the machines does not seem to have a realistic future with the world moving towards integrating greener technologies across many industries.

With startups like GRIID making waves in the Bitcoin world, a future of Bitcoin mining that is powered by carbon-free technology is a likely scenario, and the Cincinnati-based company seems to be leading the way in the field.

Bitcoin, although having been around for nearly 15 years, is still in its early stages, and as the digital currency continues to develop across the world, GRIID Infrastructure is quickly putting Cincinnati on the map in the cryptocurrency world.