Last year Motherboard gained access to a massive, secretive Bitcoin mine housed within a repurposed factory in the Liaoning Province in rural northeast China.
This is the infrastructure that keeps the digital currency’s decentralized network up and running, and its operators are profiting big time. The mine we visited is just one of six sites owned by a secretive group of four people, part of a colossal mining operation that, as of our visit, cumulatively generated 4,050 bitcoins a month, equivalent to a monthly gross of $1.5 million.
During the summer months, temperatures inside are in excess of 100 degrees, and a persistent, deafening buzz is always present due to the dozens of industrial fans required to maintain a steady temperature for the site's 3,000 ASIC miners—custom-built computers specifically built for mining bitcoins.