The new digital CASH CROP

I believe every farmer should be looking heavily into mining Bitcoin.

There are so many similarities to farming corn/soybeans and mining Bitcoin. Firstly they are both commodities. You can think of an ASIC miner as an acre of land. That acre of land produces a yield (bushels) of corn or soybeans. In Bitcoin you have ASIC miners which produce hashes (guesses). In farming you take your bushels and sell it on the open market to the Chicago board of trade where the price of corn and soybeans trade year around.

In Bitcoin you have the Bitcoin network which buys the hashes from your ASIC miners year around.  The price of corn and soybeans has its ups and downs and Bitcoin is no different. There are cycles of good years and bad years.

Secondly, not all acres are created equal, as many farmers know. Some land produces a better yield than others. Some land is wet, some is dry, some is tiled, some has high CSR, some has low CSR. Each piece of land is inherently different. The goal of every successful farmer is to own the acres that produce the highest yield while also keeping your costs to produce that yield as low as possible and making your margin in the middle.

The same applies to Bitcoin mining. With ASIC miners, some produce a better yield than others. However, unlike in farming where you have many different costs that go into producing your yield, in Bitcoin the only cost is electricity. The cheapest electricity with the best performing ASIC miners produce the most profit.

The reason why farmers should be looking into mining Bitcoin comes down to one basic principle. Having the infrastructure already in place. Ask yourself the question: What do I need to start a Bitcoin mining facility?

1. Access to cheap power (under 7-8 cents/kwh)

2. Electrical infrastructure (transformers, lines)

3. Rural land preferably (ASICs are loud)

4. Some sort of enclosure (container/building/shed)

I can you tell you from first hand experience that A LOT of farming operations have all 4 of these things already in place.

Agriculture electric rates are usually very favorable. Farmers who have their own drying and storage system, hog building, chicken farm, etc. will use power to run their day to day operations. Because of this, all the high powered infrastructure is already in place. However, sometimes this infrastructure is only utilized during specific times. For example corn drying season. Corn dryers use an absolutely tremendous amount of energy. They only use this energy 1 month out of the year though. The remaining 11 months, this infrastructure goes unused. Most farms are in rural areas with no direct neighbors so noise is not a concern either. (Side note; corn dryers are INCREDIBLY loud and make an ASIC sound like a whisper).

Lastly every single farm that I have ever seen has either a barn, machine shed, or both. An enclosure to store some ASICs. Which can be easily customized to your liking as well.

Really the only steps a farmer would have to take is figuring out where to put the ASICs and get the setup built out. Which would include getting an electrician to hook up higher voltage/amp lines from your transformer to the barn/machine shed if needed (more often than not, these machine sheds have a 250v plug on a 50a breaker meant for welding which works perfectly), and getting internet to the shed. Buy 1 or 2 ASIC's and figure out how to get them setup and hashing into a pool. Boom! You are officially mining Bitcoin. The setup costs for a farmer are so much less than a tradition Bitcoin miner who is starting with zero of the parts needed to start mining.

 Below is a video of our facility. This is on our family farm and the container is purpose built for mining Bitcoin.

Here is a picture of a fellow mining friend of ours named Kyle. He set up his ASIC miner in his brothers poultry operation. You can see it circled in red.

Bitcoin miners produce a LOT of heat and many small miners have began using the miners as a way to heat buildings/homes. Below is miner who is heating his 30x50x16 building in ND with a Bitcoin miner. He was previously spending around $200 a month to heat the building. Now he uses the heat from the miner to heat the building, earns Bitcoin in the process, and uses the electricity as a tax write off for his business. A win-win-win situation. 

A new CASH CROP is upon us. Only this time it's digital, it's called Bitcoin, and it cash flows better than traditional corn/soybean farming. If you are interested in learning more, we have experience doing this on our family farm in north central Iowa. Please reach out! We are more than happy to answer questions, provide guidance and advice, and explain further how Bitcoin/Bitcoin mining works.

-Steven Wilson, Wilson Mining LLC