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Inside a Secret Chinese Bitcoin Mine

4 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this documentary1 month2017 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN links it as a rare look inside a large Chinese mining operation, with its deafening machine noise and workers' conditions.

Motherboard's 2014 visit to a secretive Bitcoin mining operation in a repurposed factory in Liaoning, China, one of six sites producing about 4,050 bitcoins a month. It shows the machines and the workers' living conditions.

“The noise of these machines is incredibly loud and annoying even in the edited video” (HN, 2017)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Documentaries · partly dated

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@teknologist Jul 2017 Recommends
on HN thread Photos: Life inside of China’s massive and remote Bitcoin mines
Vice produced a video called "Life Inside a Chinese Bitcoin Mine" which complements these photos with a bit of an eerie audio/visual experience. The noise of these machines is incredibly loud and annoying even in the edited video and the people running these things essentially live in squalor. [link] Non-Flash: [this video]
Eerie audio-visual look at loud mining machines and workers' living conditions.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@Animats Mar 2017 Cites it
on HN thread Bitcoin, blockchains, and national security
No, they're not outside of China. Locating a Bitcoin farm in China allows paying for power, equipment, and staff in yuan, while generating revenue in dollars or euros, legally. Northeast China mine: [1] Another China mine: [2] Mine in Kangding: [3] BW Pool and Antpool, in Inner Mongolia: [4] OxBTC farm (possibly in Ordos): [5] [1] [this video] [2] [link] [3] [link] [4] [link] [5] [link]
Example of a Bitcoin mine in northeast China.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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