Bitcoin-mining smart rod makes you money while heating your home water

Heatbit makes a couple of clever home appliances that combine essential heating functions with Bitcoin mining – potentially earning you some money while you use them. Its latest product is designed to ensure you have hot showers on demand, and hopefully earn its keep in the process.

The brand's new Bitwater replaces the lower water heater element in your existing tank. It resembles other rod-like elements, but it's got a whole plug-and-play Bitcoin mining system built in.

Heatbit says this fits existing electric tank water heaters from big brands sold across North America, in the standard 1-inch screw-in element port. Once you've installed it, turned it on, and connected to your Wi-Fi network, it'll begin mining Bitcoin, and the heat generated by its processors will warm your water.

Mining is taxing on these processors because it requires trillions of calculations to confirm Bitcoin transactions and create new coins on the cryptocurrency's network. The Bitwater has 20 ASIC mining chips running simultaneously, and that generates heat for your water tank.

The chips in question are BM1370s, which together draw up to 600 W of power, and peak at a hashrate (how many guesses per second a miner makes) of 34 TH/s or 34 trillion guesses per second.