Swiss crypto miner to build Swedish plant

Alpine Mining, the Swiss cryptocurrency specialist, is branching out of Switzerland to set up a sizeable crypto mining farm in Sweden. The company has teamed up with Hong-Kong based blockchain firm Diginex to boost its presence in Europe.

The Swiss firm recently made a name for itself by setting up its own hydro-electric powered crypto mine in the small village of Gondo, near the Italian border in canton Valais. This facility is packed with rows of computers that mint new digital currencies and tokens.

It now has the task of setting up an eight megawatt hydro-electric mine at an undisclosed location in northern Sweden, which is around 30x bigger than the Gondo operation.

Alpine Mining’s success in Gondo helped the company win the contract to assist Diginex’s European expansion, according toco-founder Ludovic Thomas.The team built the Gondo mine by hand, designing the cooling system themselves and producing plastic clips to secure equipment from an on-site 3D printing machine.

It also helps that Diginex’s Head of Europe is a Valais-born Swiss resident. Diginex is backed by Hong Kong investment company Madison Holding Group that branched out from its traditional wine merchant and retail base to take a majority stake in the blockchain company last month. It will stump up the $30 million (CHF29.9 million) needed to finance the Swedish mine.

Vast power consumption

Alpine Mining has built up a network of suppliers for the specialist cryptotoken mining hardware and can handle all aspects of mining, including security, says Thomas. But this does not mean that the company has turned its back on Switzerland.

“We will continue to be based in Gondo and have plans to increase our mining capacity substantially in Switzerland,” Thomas told swissinfo.ch.

Mining for a wide variety cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, ethereum on monero, involves specialized computers competing with each other to solve complex mathematical puzzles. The miner that wins the race is rewarded with cryptocurrencies.

The operation has been criticized for expending vast amounts of power. The environmental effects of crypto mining can be mitigated by using cleaner sources of energy and the natural cooling of alpine regions.