One of the side effects of the energy-intensive process of bitcoin mining is the excessive heat generated by the hardware devices involved. Miners have to show that they have used energy in a very difficult task to find a Bitcoin block and help with the network calculation system, and the devices designed for this process generate a lot of heat, similar to what is sometimes seen in old laptops or gaming PCs.
For many years, it was thought that this heat could have a dual use for various applications, such as heating a home or a greenhouse. After all, the energy used to create heat may be reused to mine bitcoin (or vice versa), since bringing bitcoin mining money into the equation has the potential to at least partially reduce those heating costs (all other factors being equal). This effectively turns the issue of excessive heat found in many new data centers from around the world on its head by using it in a practical way without much additional cost.
These ideas are becoming more and more theoretical over time, with more tests and consumer-grade products related to this hypothesis now coming online.
This holiday season, we’re excited to bring the gift of warmth to some homes by adding our second project to warm a city of 67,000 people #Bitcoin mines. We now proudly provide heat to nearly 80,000 residents across Finland. ❄️🏠♨️ pic.twitter.com/s5Vvz0ps5v
— MARA (@MARA) December 20, 2024
This past week, Superheat unveiled their water heater at CES 2026, adding bitcoin mining to a traditional water heater. And Superheat isn’t the first company to push the idea of using bitcoin mining to provide heat to homes at an absolute low cost. Heatbit offers a similar device that focuses on heating the air in a room with a space heater. RY3T in Switzerland and Softwarm in the US also focus on helping people heat their homes with large systems.
One of the most notable examples of this concept of using bitcoin mining for heat production came from bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings, which launched a pilot project in 2024 involving a 2 megawatt facility in Finland that was used to heat more than 11,000 homes in the community. This system works by heating the water in the area before it is distributed to the buildings through underground pipes. Marathon eventually expanded its coverage to nearly 80,000 residents by the end of 2024.
In addition to heating homes, bitcoin mining may also be useful for certain heating needs of greenhouses in cold regions, as seen with a new initiative that provides heat to growing tomatoes in greenhouses in Canada. Previous research from Cornell found that waste heat from bitcoin mining can be used to improve energy efficiency and lower costs after looking at various studies from around the world. Of course, critics of bitcoin would argue that nothing is really gained here in terms of energy efficiency, since any energy used in bitcoin mining at all is considered wasteful in nature.
Another past reported example of the use of bitcoin mining in greenhouses was seen in the Netherlands with the growth of tulips, which seems perfect compared to bitcoin critics who have not stopped comparing the cryptocurrency to the tulip mania of the 17th century over the years.
Whether the economics of bitcoin mining makes sense in the long run remains to be seen. These are still early days, and bitcoin mining is a very specialized industry where access to cheap energy sources rules the day. Then again, the point here is to simply gain something back from the burning process that may already be happening rather than making a profit from bitcoin mining itself.
In many cases, such as where heat from natural gas is available at a much lower cost than from the electric grid, the trade-off of using bitcoin mining for heat may not be worth it. It is also true that those who build the hardware that goes into these types of plug-and-play systems will want a reduction in the mining revenue involved, which reduces the cost of heating consumers.
Even if the technology results in the end user benefiting from cheaper heat, the demand from AI data centers and bitcoin mining ironically share the rising cost of energy on the US grid.
Additionally, there are maintenance costs that can be increased with these types of heating equipment. For example, what if something went wrong with a sheet miner? Cost benefits effectively disappear in such a situation.
Time will tell if the bitcoin mining boom turns out to be more than a gimmick. Currently, there are indications that it may work in some cases, but it is unlikely to be the right option in all possible cases.
