Free home heating with Bitcoin? Finland is already doing it

Heating your home with no energy bill while earning Bitcoin at the same time? In Finland, that is no longer a pipe dream. A local startup is using Bitcoin miners as heating boilers. As long as the Bitcoin price remains high enough, the crypto mined can even cover the entire electricity bill.

Nokia

Finnish company SunBit has so far installed 30 so-called Bitcoin Boilers. A striking example is in Nokia, the Finnish city that gave its name to the well-known phone manufacturer. There, a 180-square-metre home is heated entirely by a Bitcoin miner, and its connection to the district heating network has been cut off.

The principle is surprisingly simple. Bitcoin miners consume huge amounts of electricity, almost all of which is ultimately converted into heat. Instead of letting that heat go to waste, SunBit captures it and uses it to heat water to a maximum of 60 degrees Celsius. That hot water then flows through radiators and underfloor heating.

Meanwhile, the computer simply keeps mining Bitcoin.

At the current combination of Bitcoin price and electricity costs, some installations earn slightly more from Bitcoin than they spend on electricity. That means, in theory, the heating can be free on a net basis.

There is, of course, a catch. An installation costs around $20.000 or more. Moreover, the payback period depends heavily on the Bitcoin price, electricity prices and global competition between miners.

And then comes the next big test in 2028. During the expected Bitcoin halving, the reward for miners will be halved again. That could suddenly make the business model much less attractive.

SunBit does not appear too worried about that for now. After all, the systems still provide heating even when Bitcoin earns less.