Place · Tarrant County

Fort Worth: The First City Government to Mine Bitcoin

Three donated machines in City Hall, one replacement, a four-figure profit, and a coda that stops where the documents stop.

By TexasBitcoin · Published October 26, 2026 · Updated October 27, 2026

The short answer

Fort Worth was the first U.S. city government to mine bitcoin. On April 26, 2022 Mayor Mattie Parker turned on three Bitmain Antminer S9s, donated by the Texas Blockchain Council and pooled through Luxor, in City Hall. The city later ran a single replacement machine. From June 2022 to June 2024 that machine made $5,626.69 and spent $1,700.80. No public accounting after July 28, 2024 was located as of October 26, 2026.

Key facts

On April 26, 2022 Fort Worth turned on three Bitmain Antminer S9s in the information-technology wing of City Hall, the first U.S. city government to mine bitcoin.^[1]^[2]
The Texas Blockchain Council donated the three machines. KERA put their combined value at $2,100. CNBC named Luxor Technologies as the pool.^[1]^[2]
The Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously to accept the gifted machines.^[2]
The city's November 2, 2022 account dates a six-month pilot to August 26, 2022 and says it netted $1,019.31 after electricity.^[3]
A public-records response, reported July 28, 2024, put June 2022 through June 2024 at $5,626.69 in revenue, $1,700.80 in expenses, and a profit of $3,925.89.^[4]
On July 28, 2024 Carlo Capua said the machine would stay at 200 Texas Street and that the city had no plans to buy more. No later public accounting was located as of October 26, 2026.^[4]

This is a place page, not a second Denton. Denton is a municipal utility that signed a company. Fort Worth is a city government that plugged in a donated rig. The people who put it there are Lee Bratcher and the Texas Blockchain Council.

What did Fort Worth turn on in April 2022?

Three small machines, in City Hall, on purpose. CNBC reported on April 26, 2022 that Fort Worth was the first city government in the United States to mine bitcoin, and that Mayor Mattie Parker had overseen a small mine in City Hall.^[1] The three Bitmain Antminer S9s were to run around the clock in the climate-controlled information-technology wing, on a private network.^[1]

The donor was the Texas Blockchain Council. CNBC said each rig was valued at roughly $600. KERA, two days later, said the three machines were worth $2,100 altogether, and that the City Council had voted unanimously to accept them and a resolution encouraging blockchain and cryptocurrency.^[1]^[2] KERA also recorded Parker turning the machines on during a Twitter stream that day: “I've been joking that we're Cowtown and cryptocurrency, right? It's all happening in Fort Worth.”^[2]

The pool was Luxor. CNBC named Luxor Technologies as the partner that let the city's hashrate combine with other miners.^[1] Alex Brammer, then Luxor's vice president of business development, told CNBC that Parker was “setting an example and effectively de-risking both bitcoin mining and bitcoin treasury strategies for every other mayor in the country.”^[1]

Parker told CNBC the point was not the profit. “For Fort Worth, a lot of people don't know who we are. We want to change that conversation.”^[1] The city's own estimate, reported by CNBC, was that each machine would use about as much energy as a household vacuum cleaner, and that mined bitcoin would offset the electricity.^[1] KERA quoted a TCU professor, Kelly Slaughter, saying that comparison does not stay still: as the puzzles get harder, the machines work harder.^[2]

What did the mayor say it was for?

A name, not a treasury. Parker told CNBC that day that a lot of people did not know Fort Worth, and that the city wanted to change that conversation. Tech innovation, including cryptocurrency, was how she said it would be done.^[1] She called the project brand new for any city, and said there had been a lot of policy to get through.^[1] She called Fort Worth the fastest growing city in the country and said cryptocurrency was a huge part of its future economy.^[1]Governments, she said, usually move at a snail's pace. Fort Worth wanted to elbow its way into the room.^[1]

CNBC's account of where the idea came from is her friends, not a study. Parker, whom CNBC described as the city's first millennial mayor and about a year in office, got the idea after talking with people in venture capital. They told her that 80 percent of venture capital was spent on tech, and that cryptocurrency was at the center of that.^[1] The 80 percent is what she was told. This page has not checked it.

A year later the sentence had moved. On August 2, 2023 the Fort Worth Report could not interview her. The statement it printed does not mention the machine, the rate, or the $1,019.31. It says local leaders have to embrace out-of-the-box ideas, names the Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth Accelerator, Texas A&M-Fort Worth's research building, and Alliance's mobility zone, and calls the mining program “just one example” of expanding what is possible in the city.^[5] Lee Bratcher, in the same piece, called it “the leap of faith that Mayor Parker took.”^[5] Carlo Capua said the city does not endorse the crypto industry, or any industry.^[5] The Report also says Quinn PR crafted the campaign behind the impressions.^[5] The mayor's case was attention. The ledger on this page is the counterweight. No later statement from her about the rig was located.

What did the six-month pilot actually earn?

Four figures, and a media number the city liked better. On November 2, 2022 the City of Fort Worth published its own account. Carlo Capua, chief of strategy and innovation, told the City Council that a six-month pilot launched August 26, 2022 had netted $1,019.31 after electricity.^[3] The same release says the project had produced nearly 753 million media impressions.^[3]

Capua's line, in the city's words, was that mining “was never about the profit.”^[3] He said Fort Worth would continue the program, and that the Texas Blockchain Council was allowing the city to keep the machine, then housed in the city's data center.^[3] Mayor Mattie Parker is in the city's photo with what the caption calls the startup machines.^[3]

The dates do not collapse into one clock, and this page does not force them to. The machines were turned on April 26, 2022.^[1]^[2] The city's November account dates the six-month pilot to August 26, 2022.^[3] The Fort Worth Report later wrote that two months into the program the city exchanged the original machines for a donated newer one.^[4] Those are three sourced sentences. They are not one timeline invented to make them agree.

What did two years of the replacement machine earn?

A profit of $3,925.89, on numbers the city released only after a records request. The Fort Worth Report's July 28, 2024 account says that from June 2022 to June 2024 the machine made $5,626.69 in revenue and ran expenses of $1,700.80.^[4]The Report noted that those cost figures arrived after publication and that the story was updated.^[4]

Capua would not give the rate. He told the Report, in an earlier interview the paper quoted again, “Our rate with our energy provider is confidential, so I'm afraid I can't share the total electricity cost as it would be easy for someone to reverse engineer our rate.”^[4] The $1,700.80 is the expense total the city did disclose. It is not a published kilowatt-hour price.

He also said the city had no plans to buy more miners, that the machine had a shelf life of about four years and had been running more than two, and that Fort Worth would keep it “until it becomes completely obsolete.”^[4]If it stopped competing, he said, the city would then evaluate next steps.^[4]

Is Fort Worth still the only city?

As of July 28, 2024, Bratcher said yes. He told the Fort Worth Report that the Texas Blockchain Council had donated a machine to Temple and that Temple never installed it, and that Fort Worth was still the only city to participate.^[4] He did not think cities would mine for profit. He did think municipal power systems might monetize underused generation.^[4]

The contrast he named is Denton: a city utility, not a mayor plugging in an S9. That record lives on Core Scientific and Texas. It is not a second City Hall.

The honest counterweight: the rate, and the gap after 2024

The program's own numbers are the counterweight. A city that counted nearly 753 million impressions also cleared $1,019.31 on the six-month account and $3,925.89 over the two years in the records response.^[3]^[4] Capua said in November 2022 that it was never about the profit. The ledger agrees with him.^[3]

The 2026 status is not a sourced fact. On July 28, 2024 Capua said the machine would stay at the current City Hall, 200 Texas Street, even as other city operations were planned to move to 100 Fort Worth Trail.^[4] A four-year shelf life, stated when the machine had already run more than two years, pointed at roughly 2026. No city release, council minute, or later Report story accounting for the rig was located as of October 26, 2026. This page does not invent a shutdown, a move, or a still-running machine.

Frequently asked questions

Was Fort Worth the first U.S. city to mine bitcoin?

Fort Worth was the first U.S. city government to mine bitcoin. On April 26, 2022 Mayor Mattie Parker turned on three donated machines in City Hall. That is a municipal pilot, not a claim that Fort Worth was the first place in Texas where anyone mined.

How much did Fort Worth's bitcoin machine make?

The city's November 2, 2022 account says a six-month pilot dated to August 26, 2022 netted $1,019.31 after electricity. A public-records response reported by the Fort Worth Report put June 2022 through June 2024 at $5,626.69 in revenue and $1,700.80 in expenses, a profit of $3,925.89.

Who donated the machines?

The Texas Blockchain Council donated three Bitmain Antminer S9s. KERA put their value at $2,100 altogether. CNBC named Luxor as the mining pool. In November 2022 the city said the Council was allowing Fort Worth to keep the machine then in the data center.

Is the City Hall machine still running?

No public accounting after July 28, 2024 was located as of October 26, 2026. On that date Carlo Capua told the Fort Worth Report the machine had about a four-year life, had been running more than two years, and would stay at 200 Texas Street. That is the last sourced status, not a 2026 confirmation.

What did Mayor Parker say the pilot was for?

A rebrand, not a treasury. On April 26, 2022 she told CNBC that a lot of people did not know Fort Worth, and that tech innovation including cryptocurrency was how the city would change that conversation. On August 2, 2023 she was unavailable for a Fort Worth Report interview. Her statement did not mention the machine or the earnings. It called the program one example, beside Techstars, Texas A&M-Fort Worth, and Alliance.

Did any other Texas city copy Fort Worth?

Not as a city government running a machine, as of the July 28, 2024 Report. Lee Bratcher told that paper the Council donated a machine to Temple and Temple never installed it, and that Fort Worth was still the only city that had done it. Denton's story is a municipal utility hosting a company, not a City Hall rig.

Sources

Every datable claim above is sourced below. This is a research and reference article, not financial or legal advice.