Bitcoin-first company Compass Mining announced today the launch of At-Home Mining. This direct-to-consumer service provides customers with the ability to mine bitcoin from their own homes. Clients that hire the service will have an ASIC machine delivered to their door within three weeks and customer support available to help them install the rig.
"Bitcoin was started by home miners and now we are seeing a renaissance of home mining," said Thomas Heller, the chief business officer of Compass Mining. "We are proud of the work we have put into making Compass an industry leader and we are confident this new offering will bring more people into bitcoin mining, which is good for the community as a whole."
Indeed, in 2009, 2010, and 2011, people could mine bitcoin with regular laptops at home. It wasn't until the first ASIC machine was introduced in 2012 that that began to change. Since then, bitcoin mining has become more institutionalized by the year, leaving retail miners out of the equation. With its newest service, Compass is taking a shot towards re-enabling regular folks to mine bitcoin from the comfort of their homes without having to pay additional hosting facility fees.
"As Compass continues to expand the services we offer, we are continuously looking to make bitcoin mining accessible for everyone. With At-Home Mining, we are bringing bitcoin mining back to its roots," said Whitney Gibbs, CEO of Compass. "While industrial mining operations and retail miners primarily use Compass to help them secure space in one of our 23 hosting facilities around the world, we have found that there is significant interest from our customer base to set up operations in their own home. By creating this new product line, it gives more flexibility and options of where to host their machine and mine bitcoin."
Compass said sales have already gone live today, and customers who opt-in to the service can expect the hardware to arrive within two to three weeks of purchase. The company also highlighted that its support team would assist customers after their purchase. However, the At-Home Mining service is currently only available to U.S. customers.