The balance of Bitcoin mining around the world is changing with the emergence of new leading countries, and Iceland has become one of them due to its abundance of renewable energy.
Iceland has become one of the last Bitcoin mining havens in Europe, Valx reported, citing research by Hashrate Index. In addition, this island nation has large amounts of hydro and geothermal energy. Jaran Mellerud, a researcher in the field of Bitcoin mining, published a report on the state of mining this cryptocurrency in Iceland on February 21, 2023. He said that this small country has the highest per capita hash rate in the world and is not a novice in the field of Bitcoin mining.
Melrod wrote:
Thanks to entrepreneurial locals and low electricity costs, Iceland is one of the first countries outside of China to mine Bitcoin on an industrial scale.
Iceland, the leader in Bitcoin mining
According to Mellerod’s estimate, the Bitcoin mining industry in Iceland consumes about 120 megawatts of electricity, which doesn’t seem like much compared to the global hash rate of 1.3%. However, Iceland has a population of around 370,000 and has the highest hash rate per capita. Several large international companies including Bitfury, Hive Blockchain, Genesis Mining operate in Iceland along with several domestic companies.
Iceland’s energy is provided by volcanoes and waterfalls, and for this reason, it is considered the richest country in the world in terms of electrical resources. Compared to Norway, which has a Bitcoin mining powerhouse and is considered the largest mining center in Europe, Iceland produces almost twice as much electricity as Norway. In fact, these two countries are the only two countries in the world that fully use renewable energy. It is stated in the report that geothermal and hydro energy is the reason for reducing the price of electricity in Iceland, and it can be said that electricity is one of the cheapest in the world.
However, according to a recent report by miners, access to energy allocations for new data centers is becoming progressively harder. This means that the growth trend is likely to remain at the current level for the foreseeable future. Unlike China and the United States, Iceland is known as one of the most politically stable countries in the world.
Regarding this issue, Melrod added:
The mining process has been going on for about ten years without causing any problems between the miners and the authorities, and this makes Iceland the most stable country in the field of Bitcoin mining in the world.
Bitcoin mining prospects
Bitcoin analysis reports show that the hash rate of the network, which has seen a 25% growth since the beginning of 2023, reached its highest level of 318 exahash/second this week, but is currently below this value.
The difficulty of the network is close to its peak at 39T, which increases the competition between miners. With the increase in the price of Bitcoin, the profit from mining has increased to 35% since the beginning of 2023.
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