Alcoa Sells Rusty Smelter to Bitcoin Buzzards – A Tale of Sparks and Dollars!

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Alcoa, that grand old dame of industry, is peddling her dormant Massena East smelter in upstate New York to a crew called NYDIG, who fancy themselves digital gold prospectors.

Because even rusted-out factories need a second act.

  • Alcoa’s hawking its 1,300-acre “retired” smelter to NYDIG, a Bitcoin outfit with more buzz than a live wire.
  • NYDIG’s plan? Turn hydropower into Bitcoin, because apparently, mining ones and zeros is easier than smelting aluminum.
  • Massena East hasn’t smelted a lick of aluminum since 2014. Now it’s set to mine digital gold. Progress!

Bill Oplinger, Alcoa’s head honcho, declared the deal’ll likely close by mid-year “if the stars align and the lawyers don’t bicker too long.” The smelter’s part of a fire sale of 10 idle U.S. sites-because nothing says “modernization” like swapping smokestacks for server farms.

Massena East, nestled along the St. Lawrence River, once hummed with industry. Now it hums with the whir of Bitcoin miners. High energy costs and foreign rivals killed its aluminum dreams in 2014. Enter NYDIG: the Johnny Appleseed of cryptocurrency, planting mining rigs where molten metal once flowed.

Bitcoin Miners Stake Claims in Industrial Ghost Towns

NYDIG, a Bitcoin financier with more optimism than sense, aims to own the site soon. They’ve already been squatting there via Coinmint, their lease-dodging sidekick. October 2024 saw NYDIG buy a stake in Coinmint-a move that sparked a lawsuit faster than a short in a dynamo.

Coinmint’s been mining at Massena since 2018, thanks to a lease signed when Alcoa still hoped to monetize the property. Now NYDIG’s muscling in, booting out rivals like CleanSpark and Gryphon. Friendly bunch, these crypto barons.

Mintvest Capital, a disgruntled Coinmint shareholder, sued NYDIG, claiming they bought the whole shebang for $200 million “on the sly.” The courtroom drama’s still simmering. Nothing bonds folks like a good old-fashioned money feud.

From Smokestacks to Server Stacks

Massena East joins a growing list of industrial relics reborn as crypto piggybanks. Century Aluminum sold their Kentucky smelter to TeraWulf for $200 million-now it’s crunching data, not metal. NYDIG’s bought up mining rigs from coast to coast, adding 390 MW of “capacity” (read: electricity-guzzling computers).

Alcoa’s exit? A eulogy for the analog age. NYDIG’s entrance? A circus tent pitched over a power line. As Twain might say: “History don’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Just don’t ask who’s mining what-or who’ll pay the light bill.

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2026-04-19 14:54