Last week, Quartz visited one of the world’s largest bitcoin mines, located in a decaying industrial park on the outskirts of the city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.
The mine is operated by Bitmain, one of the most influential companies in the $70 billion bitcoin economy. Bitmain operates seven warehouses mining bitcoin and one facility that mines litecoin, another fast-growing digital currency. It also contains a repair facility where workers fix the bitcoin machines. This is what it’s like to walk around the Ordos mine: The compound contains eight buildings and 25,000 mining rigs