Fire Breaks Out at Greenidge New York Facility, Forcing it Offline
A fire occurred at Greenidge Generation’s Bitcoin mining facility in Dresden, New York, due to an “electrical switchgear failure,” prompting a complete shutdown of operations. The mining rigs were unharmed, and operations are expected to resume within several weeks. The site generates 106 megawatts of natural gas power for both Greenidge and its partner NYDIG. The incident highlights the precarious position of Bitcoin miners, who face thin profit margins, equipment failures, volatile energy costs, supply chain issues, declining block rewards, and regulatory challenges. Industry profitability is currently under pressure: the hashprice metric for miner earnings dropped below the general profitability threshold of $40 PH/s, recently recovering slightly to $39 PH/s. Separately, Tether has closed its Uruguay mining operations amid rising energy costs and a dispute over $4.8 million in unpaid bills. In addition, US officials are investigating Chinese company Bitmain, which dominates mining hardware manufacturing, over potential national security threats tied to remote access vulnerabilities in its ASIC devices. Such developments add to mounting headwinds for the Bitcoin mining sector.
