American inventor creates 3D printer that mines bitcoin

The author of a prototype 3D printer that can mine bitcoin BTC $73,458.76 Mezo Wrapped BTC 2.64% Market capitalization $40.9 million VOL. 24 hours $1.84 billion spoke about his project on the Home Mining Podcast. The enthusiast, who goes by the nickname PizzAndy, explained that his device uses the heat of ASIC chips to maintain the temperature of the printing table, turning it into a kind of radiator.

The prototype is based on the open design of the Voron printer with a custom table that is heated by four BM 1362 AK chips. At a temperature of 75 °C, it provides a hashrate of about 500 GH/s. According to the author, the heat from the mining chips is currently only used for the table, not the extruder.

PizzAndy came up with the idea to combine 3D printing and mining five years ago, when he heated his workshop to keep his printers running smoothly. In 2024, after a presentation on heat reuse, he decided to create a hybrid device. «This product is mostly intended for a 3D printing farm where machines are running around the clock. Then the printing economy becomes similar to the mining economy,» he explained.

The developer plans to scale the project by creating a modular tile architecture based on Intel ASICs. Each tile will have 16 chips, and the total hashrate can reach 10 to 30 TH/s. The author jokes that «less than 10 TH/s — otherwise there will be a riot.»

Among the advantages of the new architecture is the ability to selectively heat certain areas of the table to work with different materials. PizzAndy believes that the technology may be of interest to 3D printer manufacturers, as it combines printing with mining, similar to consumer products that simultaneously serve as heaters and Bitcoin miners.