Lots of technology news today in the area. A real estate developer has announced that the dog park at 11th and Park, sometimes called 11th and Bark, will be replaced by a new facility for bitcoin mining.
The property surprisingly went up for sale a few months ago, leading to an effort to buy it to make sure it would remain a dog park. Those efforts didn’t succeed, and the building will be used for mining Bitcoins, which involves computers doing math problems. The proposed facility will be named 11th and Bitcoin, a reference to the area and the park.
The mining operation, a joint venture between a Chinese industrial conglomerate and startup entrepreneurs from California, sent out a press release:
“We are excited to come to the neighborhood. This property was not previously used for anything productive, and Bitcoin and its incumbent blockchain technology is a great fit in the blossoming CoHi 11th Street technology corridor. We also believe that with the coming Amazon HQ2 development in Arlington, the cloud is involved. Plus you can use Bitcoin down the street at Wonderland.”
The building is planned to have no windows, to lower heating and cooling costs, and also to limit access to any potential Bitcoin thieves. They also included a couple infographics about how bitcoin mining works.
In addition, I reached out to the 11th and Bitcoin people about it they planned anything for dog owners who formerly used the park. They suggested downloading an app called Woofr, which is “like Uber for dog parks.”
