One of the side effects of the energy-intensive process of bitcoin mining is the excess heat that is created by the involved hardware devices. Miners have to prove that they’ve expended energy on computationally-intensive work to find a Bitcoin block and help with the network’s accounting system, and the devices that are specifically made for this process give off a large amount of heat, similar to what is sometimes seen with old laptops or gaming PCs.
For many years, it has been theorized that this heat could have a double use for various applications, such as heating a home or greenhouse. After all, energy that is used to create heat may as well also be used to mine bitcoin (or vice versa), as bringing bitcoin mining revenue into the equation has the potential to at least partially offset those heating costs (all other factors being equal). This effectively flips the issue of too much heat found in many of the new data centers popping up around the world on its head by putting it to practical use without much added cost.
These ideas are becoming less theoretical over time, with more experiments and consumer-grade products related to this hypothesis now coming online.
This holiday season, we’re excited to bring the gift of warmth to even more homes with the addition of our second district heating project warming a city of 67,000 residents with #Bitcoin mining. We now proudly provide heat to nearly 80,000 residents across Finland. ❄️🏠♨️ pic.twitter.com/s5Vvz0ps5v
— MARA (@MARA) December 20, 2024
Just this past week, Superheat revealed their water heater at CES 2026, which adds bitcoin mining to a traditional water heater. And Superheat is not the first company to push the idea of using bitcoin mining to provide heat to homes at a lower total 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 U.S. are also focused on helping people heat their entire homes with larger systems.
One of the most notable examples of this concept of using bitcoin mining for heat generation has come from bitcoin mining giant Marathon Digital Holdings, who launched a pilot program in 2024 involving a 2 megawatt facility in Finland that was used to heat more than 11,000 homes in a community. The initiative works by heating water locally at the facility before being distributed to buildings via underground pipes. Marathon eventually expanded their coverage to nearly 80,000 residents by the end of 2024.
In addition to heating homes, bitcoin mining may also prove useful for the specific heat needs of greenhouses in cold climates, as seen with a new initiative providing heat to a greenhouse growing tomatoes in Canada. A previous study out of Cornell had found that heat waste from bitcoin mining can be used to improve energy efficiency and lower costs after looking at various case studies from around the world. Of course, bitcoin critics would argue there is nothing truly gained here in terms of energy efficiency, as any energy spent on bitcoin mining at all is viewed as inherently wasteful.
Another past reported example of bitcoin mining use in greenhouses was seen in the Netherlands for growing tulips, which seems perfect given bitcoin critics’ nonstop comparison of the cryptocurrency to the tulip mania of the 17th century over the years.
Whether the economics of bitcoin mining-powered heating make sense over the long term remains to be seen. These are still early days, and bitcoin mining is an extremely specialized industry where access to cheap sources of electricity rule the day. Then again, the point here is to simply gain something back from a heating process that would already be happening rather than make a profit on the bitcoin mining itself.
In many situations, such as where natural gas-powered heat is available at much lower costs than what’s available via the electrical grid, the tradeoffs of using bitcoin mining for heat may not be worth it. It’s also true that those building the hardware that goes into these sorts of plug-and-play systems are going to want a cut of the involved mining revenue, which cuts into the offsetting of heating costs for consumers.
Even if the technology pencils out for the end user who benefits from cheaper heat, demand from AI data centers and bitcoin mines ironically share some blame for a spike in U.S. grid energy costs.
Additionally, there are potentially increased maintenance costs with these sorts of heating devices. For example, what if something goes wrong with the miner that is in the heater? The cost benefits effectively disappear in such a scenario.
Time will tell if bitcoin mining-powered heating turns out to be anything more than a gimmick. For now, there are signs it can work in some situations, but it is unlikely to be the right option in every possible scenario.
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