Cryptocurrency mining is quickly becoming a popular trend due to the growing demand for digital assets. In order to meet this demand, two leading companies in the sector, Marathon Digital Holdings and Zero Two, are currently undertaking a project to set up two large-scale facilities for cryptocurrency mining in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The sites, with a combined hashrate of approximately 7 EH/s, will be located in Masdar City and Mina Zayed, and have a combined capacity of 250 megawatts (MW).

The power-hungry miners will be cooled using an innovative immersion solution as air-cooled solutions have proven to be unfeasible due to the hot desert climate of the UAE. To ensure a successful launch, the companies performed a pilot program to analyze the potential of the project and determined that implementing a custom-built immersion cooling system together with proprietary software to optimize performance was the ideal solution for the task.

The capital investment for the project is expected to total around $406 million, with an 80% equity ownership from Zero Two and a 20% equity ownership from Marathon. In addition, the sites will be powered with excess energy, aimed at increasing the base load and sustainability of Abu Dhabi’s power grid, as well as offsetting any non-sustainably produced electricity used with clean energy certificates. The two cryptocurrency mining farms are expected to become operational as early as this year.

The project signals a further shift in the cryptocurrency mining industry as current mining hotspots become less attractive due to increased regulatory pressures, energy costs and taxes. Thus, new migration of crypto miners to more favorable jurisdictions is expected, with the UAE likely to become a preferred destination.



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