Bitdeer: The Mine Next Door

Where did Bitdeer come from?

From Bitmain, and from Rockdale. Bitmain, the Beijing company that makes most of the world's mining machines, leased part of the 33,000-acre Alcoa site through a subsidiary called Dory Creek in June 2018 and announced the project that August; the mine, by Bitdeer's own filings, became operational in February 2019.^[1][11] On January 26, 2021 Bitmain distributed the shares of its mining subsidiary to its own shareholders as a dividend in kind, and Bitdeer became a separate company with a Singapore headquarters, Jihan Wu - Bitmain's co-founder - as chairman, and Linghui Kong as chief executive.^[1][4] It agreed to merge with the Blue Safari SPAC in November 2021 at about a $4 billion enterprise value; the deal took seventeen months and two deadline extensions, funded by Bitdeer's own interest-free loans to the shell, and closed April 13, 2023.^[4][5][6] Wu took over as chief executive on March 1, 2024.^[7]

The company is controlled in a way none of the others in this wing are. Its Class V shares carry ten votes each and may be held only by the founder and his affiliates; at April 21, 2026 Wu owned 19.5% of the stock and 69.5% of the votes, and the shelf registration filed that August says plainly that he “currently controls a majority of the voting power.”^[1][10] Tether bought $100 million of shares and a warrant in May 2024 and its affiliates hold about 19% of the Class A.^[8][9][1] Since 2024 the company has designed its own rigs, the SEALMINER line, reaching 9.45 joules a terahash in April 2026, which is the main reason its revenue nearly doubled in 2025.^[32][31]

What did Bitmain promise Rockdale, and what did it deliver?

The promise was the biggest thing to happen to Milam County since Alcoa left. The smelter and Luminant's Sandow plant had closed in 2017 and 2018, taking about 1,700 jobs and 30% of the county's tax revenue. On August 6, 2018 Bitmain announced a $500 million data center with 400 jobs and 137 more in spin-offs; on August 13 the commissioners court approved a ten-year phased tax abatement conditioned on 350 of them. “This is a great day for all the citizens of Milam County,” the development district's chairman said; “We welcome our newest employer,” said the county judge.^[11][12][14]

Bitcoin fell below $4,000 that winter. In January 2019 Bitmain suspended Rockdale, leaving a crew of five and seven or eight thousand idle servers, and the abatement was halted for want of the jobs. The new county judge, Steve Young: “Whether you're selling feed for cattle or mining cryptocurrency, if the market goes sour you're just up the creek.”^[13][14] Then, without the abatement and without the headlines, the mine got built. On October 21, 2019 Bitmain announced the launch of a 25-megawatt farm, a 50-megawatt target, and 300 megawatts of potential, with DMG Blockchain operating it; CoinDesk reported fewer than fifty staff and a build cost of $80 to $100 million. A Bitmain executive: “Our investment is not so sensitive to the bitcoin price.” A former Alcoa worker: “People are a little skeptical.”^[15][16] By 2020 the site had three lines built, two under construction, and plans for sixteen; by December 2024 it was 563 megawatts, with 179 more planned.^[17][25] In August 2026 the company said it employs more than a hundred people locally at an average of about $80,000, has received no real-estate tax abatement, and gives to the school district and the volunteer fire department.^[37] The four hundred jobs were never the point; the megawatts were.

Why has the site said so little about the largest mine at Rockdale?

Because the company does. CNBC sent a crew to Rockdale in October 2021 and came back with a comparison the town has lived with since: Riot's Whinstone, four-tenths of a mile away, “throws open its doors to media,” while Bitdeer is “aloof, steeped in mystery, and definitely not keen on visitors,” and would not answer questions about its rig count, headcount, or output.^[18][24]The pattern holds in the public record. Riot testified against SB 1751 in March 2023; Bitdeer did not appear. Riot sued the Department of Energy over its emergency survey in 2024; Bitdeer's name is on Senator Warren's 2022 letter to six miners and nowhere in the Waco docket. Riot reports its power credits to the dollar; Bitdeer's annual reports do not contain the word ERCOT.^{[20][19][1][2]} Riot is on its own page and the town on its own; this page exists because the other half of the land deserved one.

What is Bitdeer's record with the grid and the state?

Mostly what others have found out. The Dallas Morning News's watchdog column reported in the fall of 2023 that the Rockdale mine draws power equal to more than 300,000 homes and “has been awarded nearly $50 million for participating in these programs that help balance the grid” - the only public figure for the site's demand-response earnings, and not the company's.^[22][23] The company powered down with the rest of Texas ahead of Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022 and, in Winter Storm Fern in January 2026, told the press it “stands ready to fully support the grid should supply constraints occur.”^[45][44] Its own numbers came seven months later, in the statement it issued supporting the Governor's audit: “194+ hours of curtailment since 2025,” about 55 million kilowatt-hours of demand reduced, and a “310 MW load reduction during Winter Storm Fern.” “Greater industry disclosure encourages responsible, sustainable growth that puts Texans first.”^[37] The Governor's directive of August 3, 2026 asks ERCOT to audit each large load's tax incentives, water, cooling, community impact, and “project ownership structures”; the audit of roughly 300 projects is due December 10, and no source yet says how Rockdale's planned 179 megawatts are classed.^[34][38]

The ownership question has been asked once, in the same Dallas Morning News reporting. Texas's Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act of 2021 bars companies owned by citizens of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from the state's critical infrastructure; the Attorney General has read it to reach generators, not loads. Bitdeer is a Cayman company run from Singapore by a founder born in China and resident in Singapore, spun out of a Beijing company whose rigs the federal government examined for security risks in 2025 - a probe that did not name Bitdeer, which now makes its own.^[22][30][1] No Texas or federal action against Bitdeer's ownership has been reported, and its 2025 annual report does not contain the words national security, CFIUS, or foreign adversary.^[1]

The honest counterweight: the quiet mine, the water, and the plan

Three things, and the first cuts in Bitdeer's favor. The mine next door has none of the neighbor's troubles: no nuisance suit, no county resolution, no jury trial, no incorporation vote. It took no abatement after 2019, pays more than a hundred people about $80,000, has cut load in every storm anyone has checked, and has said it welcomes the Governor's scrutiny.^[37] Rockdale's noise coverage is about Riot; Granbury's is about MARA; Bitdeer has never been the subject of either. The second thing is what the quiet costs. The Texas Tribune found in September 2026, reporting on a water survey that only 28% of the state's data centers had answered, that the Rockdale facility uses more than 300 million gallons a year, a town of 3,500's worth - a figure the company had not published and the public learned from a reporter.^[40] The grid payments were the same: “nearly $50 million,” from a newspaper, not a filing.^[22] The third is the plan. Rockdale has been “Evaluating AI” since February 2026 and “in active evaluation of AI transition” since May, through two quarterly reports, a $100 million land purchase, and a statement that the site is “well positioned to receive additional power allocations,” without a tenant, a megawatt, or a dollar attached.^{[31][33][35][39][41]} In the same weeks the neighbor named a frontier AI lab, 191 megawatts, twenty years, and $9.1 billion.^[36] A company controlled by one man with seven votes in ten, whose treasury went from 2,017 bitcoin to 61 in eight months to pay for rigs and land, is asking Milam County to trust an evaluation.^[1][31][41]

The fair reading is that Bitdeer has been a better neighbor than its reputation and a worse witness than its neighbor - that the town got a mine that works and pays without ever getting the company that would explain it - and that the Governor's audit, which asks about ownership and water by name, is the first time the state has asked the questions the press has been asking since 2021.

Where does Bitdeer stand today?

As of September 30, 2026: 563 megawatts online at Rockdale, 179 planned, 255 acres owned or leased, about 80 exahash of its own rigs, 61 bitcoin, a $92.3 million second-quarter loss, a founder with 69.5% of the votes, an AI conversion under evaluation, a water survey the state is now enforcing, and an audit due in December.^{[39][41][35][1][40]} The other companies in the wing are on Riot Platforms and Texas, MARA Holdings and Texas, Core Scientific and Texas, and Cipher and Texas; the town is on Rockdale, Texas; the sites are on the Texas Bitcoin mining map. This page is the mine next door, and what the public has been able to find out about it.