Heatbit's $899 Water Heater Element Mines Bitcoin While It Heats Your Tank

In brief

• Heatbit has unveiled Bitwater, a water heater element with 20 Bitcoin mining chips that screws into existing electric tanks in the U.S. and Canada.
• The element produces up to 34 TH/s on up to 600 watts, and the first batch costs $899 to preorder, with later batches priced at up to $1,299.
• Heatbit pitches it as a way to decentralize Bitcoin mining, saying homes use more electricity heating water than the whole Bitcoin network does.

Heatbit, which makes space heaters with built-in Bitcoin miners, has unveiled a water heater element that mines Bitcoin while it heats water, the company said in a tweet on Thursday.

The element, called Bitwater, replaces the resistance wire in a standard electric water heater element with 20 Bitcoin mining chips, so the heat they give off warms the water instead. "Same heat, same electricity, plus bitcoin," Heatbit wrote, arguing that "the electricity was going to be spent on hot water anyway."

The element uses 20 of Bitmain's BM1370 chips and is rated at up to 34 terahashes per second, drawing up to 600 watts at an efficiency of 12 joules per terahash. The water cools the chips, so there are no fans and no noise, according to the company.

Heatbit describes installation as a do-it-yourself job: switch off the breaker, drain the tank, unscrew the old element and thread in Bitwater using an included wrench. It fits the standard one-inch port on regular 30- to 80-gallon electric tanks in the U.S. and Canada, including those made by A. O. Smith, Rheem, Bradford White, Whirlpool and GE, Heatbit said in a follow-up tweet, with no plumbing changes or new circuit needed.