Trendy Brooklyn bathhouse powered by Bitcoin mining draws heated response

A trendy Brooklyn bathhouse picked up steam this week when it boasted that it uses Bitcoin mining to generate heat for its pools.

“Did you know our pools are heated with byproduct from Bitcoin mining?” Williamsburg’s Bathhouse posted on Instagram, drawing hundreds more comments than usual.

A video explains in a few steps how the futuristic process to mine the virtual currency goes down.

“Step one: mine Bitcoin. Mining uses electricity for computing power and generates heat as a byproduct,” the narrator says.

Bitcoin mining involves solving complicated math problems with specialized software that verifies transactions in the currency, according to the financial services company Bankrate.

“Step two: send the heat generated by the miners to heat exchangers and heat our pools. Step three: enjoy hot pool while supporting the Bitcoin network,” the video continues. “The pools absorb the heat and circulate cool liquid back to the miners.”

Mining Bitcoin is energy-intensive and critics argue that it is bad for the environment.

“This makes me like Bathhouse less,” commented one user. “Now I’m concerned about who is mining this cryptocurrency, who is profiting from it, and whether I support that.”

“I ain’t supporting that sh-t,” said another.

Others applauded the innovation.

“This is awesome,” wrote one person. “I pretty much never leave Manhattan but I just booked a massage.”

The company remains passionate about its business model.

“Instead of using electricity for an electric pool heater, we use electricity to run the miners,” Bathhouse co-founder Jason Goodman told Yahoo’s In The Know. 

“The net result is that we are essentially energy-neutral because we are powering the miners with energy we already needed to purchase to heat our pools,” Goodman continued. “Therefore, we are able to use this electricity ‘twice’ in a certain sense … We are able to recover a lot of our energy costs while supporting the Bitcoin network and nerding out on a fun engineering project.”

The company created a new Frequently Asked Questions section on its website to provide some more insight.

“From our perspective, if Bitcoin is able to have even a small percentage of positive impact that we think it might, it would be important to be open minded about it,” Bathhouse explains.

The old factory-turned-massage-house opened in 2021 and features spa treatments such as massages as scrubs and has a restaurant and bar.