It’s hard to explain Bitcoins to someone who has never heard of them before. Writing them off as online money specifically for sex, drugs and guns is too broad and breaking down the process required to get a handful’s worth is too convoluted to try. Instead, come join the masses and ogle at these pictures of a northeast Chinese company doing it right.

The facility is being freshly built and is reminiscent of a server farm but where those usually store boring things like credit card information and encrypted photos of nude celebrities, these are full of algorithmic block puzzles getting solved at light speed in exchange for non-real money. Tight.

The operation is so huge and complex that the computer activity is measured in units that would be totally foreign to the average MacBook toter. ‘Several petahashes of mining power’ is the coolest thing I’ve read in a while that’s reminiscent of science fiction. Even autocorrect doesn’t believe petahashes are real.

The facility is already racking up a $1m a month electricity bill thanks to the sheer number of computers, servers and cooling devices used to keep the entire place a smooth 25°c. The completed operation is expected to account for 5% of all Bitcoin operation which by my estimates is exactly a metric shit ton of space cash.

[Via.]

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