Canadian mining firm MintGreen has closed a seed round of funding led by the venture capital arm of digital asset management company CoinShares.
The number of attracted investments in MintGreen was not disclosed.
The Vancouver-based company develops projects for environmentally friendly bitcoin mining. Since 2017, MintGreen has been mining using electricity from renewable sources.
The firm also aims to monetize the heat generated by immersion-cooled equipment by offering it to be used for space heating and water heating without a carbon footprint. MintGreen already has partnerships with several utilities.
The company has planned for the second quarter two pilot projects for the consumption of heat generated by mining on an industrial scale. The partners will be Shelter Point and Vancouver Island Sea Salt, producers of whiskey and sea salt, respectively.
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CoinShares Director of Strategic Affairs Meltem Demirors said: “We believe BTC is driving fundamental changes in the energy and infrastructure sectors. As the mining ecosystem grows in North America, innovative companies like MintGreen will bridge the gap between cryptocurrency mining, industrial power generation, and sustainability requirements.”
Demirors became one of the participants in the investment round, including Nelson Investments, Hard Money Collective, Vipul Goyal, Cristofoli Contracting, and others.
Bitcoin mining has traditionally faced criticism for: high electricity consumption, which increases carbon emissions; excessive noise from equipment cooling installations, worsening the local environmental situation.
According to a study by the Munich Technical University, a third of the total energy consumption of the mining industry is accounted for by altcoins.
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Industry experts consider exaggerated concerns about environmental damage from electricity consumption for the production of the first cryptocurrency.