Buying Shuttered Factories — NYDIG's Alcoa Deal Shows How Industrial America Is Going Crypto

In 2014, Alcoa ceased operations at its aluminum smelter located in Massena East due to increasing energy costs and severe competition from the rest of the world. This 1,300-acre site on the St Lawrence River in upstate New York has been idle for over a decade; however, it will soon be transformed into one of the largest Bitcoin mining facilities in America. Alcoa's CEO Bill Oplinger has confirmed to Bloomberg Friday that they are currently having discussions with NYDIG (a Bitcoin financial service provider owned by Stone Ridge) regarding the purchase of Massena East. Oplinger said that he expects the sale to occur in the "middle of this year." The parties have yet to publicly disclose details regarding the sale, but it is easy to understand why each side is pursuing this arrangement.

Why a Smelter Is Perfect for Bitcoin Mining

Smelters use vast amounts of electricity all day long non-stop; that's far more than any normal business could handle. Because they do so much work to consume all that power they need heavy duty substations, transmission lines, and direct connections into the high capacity grid to do so. Building the infrastructure alone takes years and tens of millions of dollars of investments and permits.

Just like with smelters, a miner needs access to the same kind of infrastructure. The mining business is primarily about power and through your hash rate, you create hashes (or computational power). Whoever has the ability to get their hands on cheap and reliable power will generate the most hash rate. Therefore, when you find a piece of property with the necessary grid infrastructure already in place, it will be worth significantly more than just the land itself.

In addition to being next to one of the cheapest types of hydroelectric power available (through the New York Power Authority), Massena East has access to clean, consistent, and reliable energy — with no risks associated with emissions or fuel price fluctuations. As a miner trying to lock-in your long-term operational costs after the mining halving, this experience is one of the best that can be found.

NYDIG Was Already There

This decision isn't something that just occurred to them. For some time, they have developed their relationship to Massena through their interest in Coinmint, a Bitcoin miner operating from NYDIG's present location under a long-term lease with Alcoa. Therefore, buying the land is the next logical step as it allows NYDIG to transition from being a tenant paying rent to becoming a property owner and direct infrastructure controller.

This transition is critical because, with third-party hosting relationships, there are many limitations for the host; they own the power contract, set the terms of the facility, and can dictate when the upgrades occur. Owning the facility allows NYDIG to expand the facility's capacity based upon its own requirements, renegotiate power contracts directly, and make the building a permanent part of NYDIG's operation. Additionally, last year, NYDIG acquired Crusoe Energy's Bitcoin mining business, which includes its digital flare mitigation assets, making Massena East the largest physical footprint for NYDIG to date when it is completed.

This Is Becoming a Pattern

Earlier this year, Century Aluminum sold its Hawesville smelter in Kentucky to Bitcoin and high-performance computing miner TeraWulf for $200 million. TeraWulf's stock has risen by 80% since the beginning of 2021. The transaction received widespread attention in the mining industry because it proved that it is possible to convert a shuttered heavy industrial site into digital infrastructure — something that many in the industry had speculated could happen, but no one could show at scale.

The Alcoa-NYDIG transaction is based on the same thesis — only one state further north — and there are now numerous retired smelters, steel mills and other large manufacturers that were originally constructed for continuous operation that have become the most valuable real estate options in the cryptocurrency industry. These buildings have been built to support a high power load, and the areas that they are located in have been zoned as industrial. There are existing grid connections available to provide power to these buildings; in addition, the original owners of these buildings are usually very motivated to sell those buildings as they currently do not produce any revenue, but they do incur operating costs associated with maintaining the structure.

Alcoa has a total of ten smelter properties in the U.S. that are idle and are looking for buyers. Massena East is likely the first of many properties that will sell to a buyer.

What It Means for the Mining Industry

Beneath all this, there is a maturity argument at play. The days when Bitcoin mining utilized free bedroom space, inexpensive consumer-grade hardware, and opportunistically hosted servers are long gone. NYDIG is demonstrating how the new phase of mining will take place by purchasing permanent, industrial-level infrastructure that has access to electricity on controlled terms. The new phase of mining will require a significant amount of investment, be illiquid, and be structured for a long-term strategy rather than being speculative.

As evidenced by the ever-increasing hashrate of the Bitcoin network, competition for inexpensive power has increased substantially. Miners that have locked up locations such as Massena East (which is served by green hydropower, owning their own assets, with the ability to grow) are granting themselves many years of competitive advantage over miners that are unable to acquire similar types of sites, and will eventually be forced out of business on margins.

After attempting to divest itself of a smelter that it could not use, Alcoa was interested in acquiring a "power-ready" site that it would hold in its asset portfolio indefinitely; consequently, the St. Lawrence River has now become a focal point for Bitcoin mining facilities. Additionally, the manufacturing landscape of the United States is being gradually, but significantly, altered as factories that have been closed are brought back online.