Wyoming-based mining company Sazmining announced Thursday that it has launched direct retail and institutional sales for Proto immersion hashboards, expanding access to hardware previously restricted to large-scale operators. Under the arrangement, buyers purchase the hardware outright while Sazmining handles deployment, monitoring, and maintenance at a US facility, sending all mining rewards directly to the owner's wallet.
Hardware Specifications and Multi-Megawatt Deal
Each Proto hashboard delivers approximately 200 TH of computing power at an efficiency rate of around 15 J/TH. The rollout follows a multi-megawatt supply agreement between Sazmining and Proto—the bitcoin mining division of Jack Dorsey's company Block (NYSE: XYZ)—with both parties expecting to scale the partnership as demand grows.
"Because of our aligned-incentive model, Sazmining only earns when we produce bitcoin for our clients," stated Kent Halliburton, CEO and co-founder of Sazmining. Halliburton framed hosted mining as a method to diversify bitcoin acquisition by spreading expenditure across the operational life of the machine rather than paying spot market prices. Founded in 2018, Sazmining operates renewable-powered data centers across the US, Paraguay, and Norway, maintaining a fleet footprint that runs more than 20 percentage points ahead of the broader Bitcoin network's carbon-free share.
Key Takeaways and Strategic Alignment
- Direct Hardware Purchase: Retail and institutional investors can buy Proto immersion hashboards directly via Sazmining.
- Technical Output: Individual hashboards generate 200 TH at 15 J/TH within hosted liquid immersion setups.
- Fully Managed Hosting: Sazmining manages maintenance at US sites while sending yield straight to user wallets.
- Open Mining Vision: Block originally announced its open bitcoin mining system initiative in January 2022.
Proto forms a core part of Block's broader ecosystem alongside Cash App and the Bitkey self-custody wallet. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has long advocated for open financial infrastructure, stating in 2021 that "Bitcoin mining should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source." Block subsequently formalized its strategy in January 2022 with the objective of making mining hardware "more distributed and efficient."
Why It Matters
By lowering the entry threshold for immersion-cooled hardware, Sazmining and Proto are addressing one of the structural centralizations in the Bitcoin network: institutional dominance over advanced cooling technology. As individual investors evaluate options alongside long-term Bitcoin market cycles and expanding options for bitcoin custody and infrastructure, turnkey hosted immersion hardware could enable broader participation in network security. If successful, this supply agreement provides a viable blueprint for commercializing open-source mining hardware while advancing sustainable energy usage across global hosting facilities.
