Americans are heating their homes with bitcoin this winter

As the winter cold begins to set in in the U.S. and utility bills become a bigger budget problem, most Americans will rely on their usual heating sources like home heating oil, natural gas, and electric furnaces. But in a few cases, crypto produces heat, and if some proponents of the nascent crypto heat industry are right, it will one day be much more common as a source in homes and buildings.

Let’s start with the basics: The computing power of crypto mining produces a lot of heat, and most of this heat is lost to the air. According to digital asset broker K33, the bitcoin mining industry produces approximately 100 TWh of heat annually – enough to heat all of Finland. This waste of energy in an energy-intensive industry is leading entrepreneurs to look for ways to reuse heat for homes, offices or other locations, especially in cold weather.

During a cold spell at the beginning of this year, The New York Times reviewed HeatTrio, A $900 heater that can also be used as a Bitcoin mining rig. Others are using the heat from their in-home cryptocurrency mining to radiate warmth throughout their homes.

“I’ve seen bitcoin rigs running silently in attics; the heat they produce is directed into the home’s ventilation system to offset heating costs. This is a smart use of energy that would otherwise be wasted,” said Jill Ford, CEO of Bitford Digital, a sustainable bitcoin mining company based in Dallas. “Harnessing heat is another example of how crypto miners can be energy allies if you apply some creativity to their potential,” Ford said.

This doesn’t necessarily mean saving money on someone’s electricity bill—the economics will vary greatly from place to place and from person to person, depending on factors like local electricity rates and the speed of a mining machine—but this approach can save money to offset heating costs.

“It’s the same price as heating the house, but the advantage is you’re mining bitcoin,” Ford said.

A single mining machine (even an older model) is sufficient. Solo miners can make returns more predictable and change the economic equation by joining mining pools to share computing power and receive prorated payouts.

“The concept of using crypto mining or GPU computing to heat homes is smart in theory because almost all of the energy consumed by computing is released as heat,” said Andrew Sobko, founder of Argentum AI, which is creating a market for sharing computing power. But he added that the concept makes the most sense in larger environments, particularly in colder climates or high-density buildings like data centers, where computational heat has shown real promise as a form of industrial-scale heat recovery.

To make it work – you can’t move heat somewhere by truck or train – you need to determine where computer heat is needed and direct it to that location; Co-locating GPUs in a variety of environments, from industrial parks to residential buildings.

“We are already working with partners that redirect computer heat into building heating systems and even agricultural greenhouse heating. This is where the economic and environmental benefits truly make sense,” Sobko said. “Instead of trying to physically move the heat, you move the calculation closer to where the heat provides value,” he added.

Why do skeptics say crypto home heating won’t work?

There are many skeptics.

Derek Mohr, a clinical associate professor at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, doesn’t think the future of home heating lies in crypto, and says even industrial crypto is problematic.

Bitcoin mining is now so specialized that, according to Mohr, the chances of a home computer, or even a network of home computers, being able to help mine a block of bitcoin would be almost zero; mining farms use special chips created to mine bitcoins much faster than a home computer.

“Bitcoin mining at home and on networks of home computers was something that had minor success 10 years ago, but not anymore,” Mohr said.

“The bitcoin heating devices I have seen appear to be simple space heaters that use your own electricity to heat the room, which is not an effective way to heat a home,” he said. “Yes, bitcoin mining produces a lot of heat, but the only way to get it to your home is to use your own electricity,” Mohr said.

He added that running your computer non-stop will generate heat, but the likelihood of successfully mining a bitcoin block is very low.

“I think this is not a real opportunity that will work. Instead, it’s taking advantage of what people have heard about (excessive heat from bitcoin mining and profits from mining) and giving false hope that there is a way that individuals can benefit from this,” Mohr said.

But some experts say wider use of plug-and-play, standalone mining platforms could make the concept applicable in more places over time. At the very least, they say it’s worth examining the economic and environmental benefits of dual use, based on the fact that crypto mining generates a significant amount of heat as a byproduct of computer processing.

“How can we capture the excess heat from the process to power something else? This can range from heating a house to even heating water in a swimming pool. As a result, your operating efficiency is higher in your power consumption,” said Nikki Morris, managing director of the Ralph Lowe Energy Institute at Texas Christian University.

He says the concept of cryptoheating is still in its early stages and most people don’t yet understand how it works or what its broader implications might be. “That’s one of the things that makes it so interesting. At Texas Christian University, we see opportunities to help people build both vocabulary and business use feasibility with industry partners,” Morris said.

Because crypto mining produces a digital asset that can be traded, it offers a new source of revenue from power consumption, and according to Morris, the power source can be anything from the grid to natural gas, solar to wind, or battery production. He cited charging an electric vehicle in mixed-use buildings or apartment complexes as an example.

“Imagine a similar scenario where an apartment complex’s crypto mining setup generates both digital currency and usable heat energy. This opens the door to distributed energy innovation to a broader stakeholder base, an approach that can complement existing heating systems and renewable generation strategies,” Morris said.

There are many questions to explore, including efficiency at different scales, integration with other energy sources, regulatory considerations and overall environmental impact, “but as these technologies develop, it’s worth looking at cryptoheating not just as a curiosity, but as a small window into how digital and physical energy systems may increasingly converge in the future,” Morris said.

Testing Bitcoin heat in the real world

The crypto-warming future may be brewing in the town of Challis, Idaho, where Cade Peterson’s company Softwarm is repurposing bitcoin heat to survive the winter.

Many shops and businesses in town are trialling Softwarm’s platforms for mining and heating. At TC Car, Truck and RV Wash, the owner spends $25 a day heating wash bays to melt snow and heat water, Peterson says.

“Conventional heaters consume energy that is irreversible. They set up Bitcoin miners and that’s generating more money in Bitcoin than it costs to operate,” Peterson said. Meanwhile, an industrial concrete company offsets its $1,000 monthly bill for heating its 2,500-gallon water tank by heating it with bitcoin.

Peterson has been heating his own home using Bitcoin mining equipment for two and a half years, and he believes the heat will power almost everything in the future. “In a few years, you’ll go to Home Depot and buy a water heater with a data port on it, and your water will be heated with bitcoin,” Peterson said.