Swiss cryptocurrency mining farm (Swiss Stories 2019, by Valentin Flauraud) - Swiss Press Award
Valentin Flauraud
Alpine Mining employees Bertrand Deldon, left, and Patrick Widmer, right, are lit by the LED status lights of electronic boards during a long exposure photograph at a cryptocurrency mine in the small alpine village of Gondo, Switzerland, Monday, May 7, 2018. The village formerly host to gold mining activities over a century ago has now attracted the cryptocurrency mining computing centers of the "Alpine Mining" company thanks to electricity prices among the lowest in Switzerland. Split in two computing centers, 1800 graphic cards (GPUs) with a power consumption of 300 kW mine various crypto currencies based on blockchain technology such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Monero (XMR) or Litecoin (LTC).
Keystone_ATS
Photo / Swiss Stories
2019
Valentin Flauraud
As the mess of cables and dim light in these dark cryptocurrency mining caves allowed for very little photographic options, I finally chose to try and capture a few images as all lights were turned off. A long exposure revealed an explosion of colors from all the LEDs of the graphic cards and allowed to emphasize power consumption, a big challenge in some current implementations of the technology.
