January Start-up Standard Mining
Data center in Kazakhstan
“Thanks to the world’s lowest electricity bill
A domestic startup (start-up) builds the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining site in Kazakhstan.
According to the information technology (IT) industry on the 24th, Standard Mining, which was founded in January this year, will build the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining data center with a power supply of 500 MW in Kazakhstan. With 500 MW of power supply, you can mine up to 150 bitcoins per day. Standard Mining CEO Woo Ki-hoon said, “Stable power supply is the most important for mining cryptocurrency. If 500 MW of power is supplied, you can mine 60 to 150 bitcoins a day.”
Riot Blockchain, an American company with a market capitalization of 5 trillion won, listed on the NASDAQ as the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining company, operates a data center with a power supply of 65 MW. Therefore, when Standard Mining completes a data center in Kazakhstan, it will have the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining site that surpasses Riot’s blockchain.
Standard Mining plans to build a data center with a power supply of 14 ㎿ first, increase it to 60 ㎿ by the end of this year, and then expand it to the level of 500 ㎿ at the beginning of next year. CEO Woo explained, “Because we need to have related equipment such as mining computers in addition to power supply, we will gradually expand the scale.”
To this end, Standard Mining acquires a power generation company owned by an electric power company under the Kazakhstan government. This power generation company has a power supply of 500 MW. CEO Woo said, “We plan to establish a local special purpose corporation and take over the power generation company, and then put it as a subsidiary of the headquarters. We have already secured the data center site and are leaving for Kazakhstan on the 24th for a contract to take over the power generation company.” Standard Mining also recently invested 2 billion won in seed money.
The reason why the company chose Kazakhstan is that electricity costs are among the lowest in the world. CEO Woo emphasized, “The electricity bill in Kazakhstan is 2.3 cents per kW, and it is 30,40% cheaper than the industrial electricity bill for the operation of factories in Korea.” Kazakhstan is attracting related companies from all over the world by creating a cryptocurrency mining complex with low electricity bills and tax benefits.
In particular, Ekivastus, which this company is building a data center for, has the world’s largest Grace 1 (photo) owned by Kazakhstan’s state-owned company Samruk Energy and the Grace 2 thermal power plant, which is famous for the world’s tallest chimney (420m). The Grace 1 thermal power plant is producing 4,000 MW of electricity per month from coal excavated from Eki-Bastuz and exporting it to Russia. The company’s data center will also be built next to the power plant.
Standard Mining is mainly mining Bitcoin and Litecoin, and plans to proceed with businesses such as mining and issuing various cryptocurrencies and operating exchanges. CEO Woo said, “If you mine cryptocurrency with 500㎿ of power supply, you can generate annual sales of 700 billion won. Based on this, we plan to run various blockchain businesses such as issuing cryptocurrencies and operating exchanges.”
Yeonjin Choi IT professional reporter [email protected]
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