Broken gas stove? I just heat my caravan with a Bitcoin miner

Michael Schmid first made contact with Bitcoin (BTC) in 2013; he installed Bitcoin core, mined a few BTC and then bought some Bitcoin from MtGox. Schmid told Coin-Crypto that he also “lost interest” shortly after the infamous Mt Gox hack, in which Schmid lost his Bitcoin.

Timewarp to 2020 and Schmid became “very active again” as worries about “endless money printing” alarmed him.

“With that [money printing] I found that I strongly disagree with Fiat money and believe that Bitcoin should be the global reserve currency and store of value.”

An inquisitive and curious mind, Schmid dug himself back into the BTC mining rabbit hole, building on the knowledge he had unearthed 7 years earlier. He learned about “ASICs, Antminers and all the other things that have happened in the Bitcoin mining space over the past few years” before having a eureka moment.

“It makes much more sense to replace a resistive heater (such as a space heater) with a bitcoin miner, as both will convert electricity into heat, while the bitcoin miner also generates bitcoin.”

Since Schmid was working in an office at the time, “he bought an S9 from a friend and used the S9 miner instead of the space heater to heat my office, which worked perfectly.” Schmid has discovered a winning combination.

Schmid’s S9 miner in a box under his laptop, with a heat sink. Source: Michael Schmid

He was able to clear valid Bitcoin blocks and reap the rewards while keeping his work and living space nice and warm. Aside from office work, Schmid also enjoys traveling across America, often in his American motorhome, an Airstream.

So when during Schmid’s next trip with his Airstream (see photos) the heating unit ran into intermittent problems, Schmid thought he “could also use the S9 heater to heat the Airstream as a stopgap.”

The airstream, parked in snowy Colorado, heated by a Bitcoin miner. Source: Michael Schmid

They say necessity is the mother of invention, so Schmid “started thinking about how I [he] could build the system.” Space is precious in an Airstream and if the S9 were placed in the RV it would “overheat the airstream easily”.

“So I came up with the idea of ​​boxing it outside and directing the warm air into the airflow.”

Placing the S9 outside saves space and prevents overheating. Source: Michael Schmid

After a series of repetitions and a few superficial burns, a short circuit and a day when the ambient airflow temperature rivaled a Scandinavian sauna: “[I] got the airflow indoor temperature up to 90F [32 degrees Celsius] for a day, with the stove on when it shouldn’t,’ Schmid finally broke it.

The caravan was kept warm while mining Bitcoin, powered by solar panels on the roof and free electricity at the campsite, eliminating the need to burn propane gas. Schmid adds that “we have quite a small airflow (just 22 ft), larger RVs have much larger propane heating systems and would pay a lot more for the propane (they could use more S9, of course).”

But why go to all that trouble to equip a motorhome with a Bitcoin miner? Why not try to fix the propane heater problem?

Admittedly, it’s a cool Bitcoin side project. Not only did it solve the intermittent heating problems, though, but Schmid “save about 50% of the propane cost, which is about $2.7 per day,” and according to current estimates, generates “0.00006259 BTC per day.”

All in all, Schmid and his fiancée are “technically heating the airflow for free” while securing the Bitcoin network.

Satoshi would probably be proud of the neat bitcoin heating setup. Source: Schmid

Related: Flower powered: Bitcoin miner heats greenhouses in the Netherlands

Schmid shared a post with aspiring miners:

“I really encourage everyone to play with home mining. I really believe that one of the most important things about Bitcoin is the decentralization of not only the coins, but also the mining infrastructure.”

In an encouraging word, he concludes, “the more home mining setups out there, the better.”

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