Energy → Proof-of-Work → Value One thesis, running today.
Surplus energy becomes verifiable compute. The pool is running and accepting work: 97% of the block reward goes to the miner, 3% to the platform, settled on-chain. On hardware you own, non-custodially.
Access Status
Solar households, miners, and compute evaluators can request access now. Public pages describe what is live today.
- Configured onboarding
- Verify an email to open your dashboard. Connection details are private and are issued there once your access is approved.
- Alpha
- Proof-of-Work explains how surplus energy becomes verifiable value through Bitcoin mining.
One line, energy to value
A watt that would otherwise be exported is pointed at proof-of-work on hardware you own, and the reward lands at an address you control.
Why Melanin?
Melanin is non-custodial by construction: your share is written into the block’s own coinbase transaction, so Melanin never holds private keys or funds and there is no balance to withdraw. The split is 97% miner / 3% platform, settled on-chain — your wallet holds the record.
The design targets surplus and stranded renewable energy — solar most abundantly, and hydro, wind, geothermal or curtailed industrial load on the same terms: a watt that would otherwise be exported can be pointed at proof-of-work instead, on hardware you own and at an address you control.
The clients are open source and the hardware is audit-friendly, with no platform lock-in — it runs at a clinic, a school, a co-operative, or a home.
What proof-of-work is
Compute that requires real energy to produce real economic value — running today, on one shared energy substrate.
- Bitcoin mining
- Bitcoin mining on hardware you own. The pool is running and accepting work, and access is granted by review.
- Flexible load
- Mining is interruptible, parallel, and location-flexible, so it absorbs surplus energy where the grid cannot carry it away. That is why the hardware belongs at the generation, not at the substation.
The convergence trend
Energy, mining, and AI compute are converging into one market. The evidence below is third-party and public; what Melanin runs today is Bitcoin.
- AI is becoming an energy industry
- Industry projections expect data-centre electricity consumption to roughly double by 2030 as AI workloads scale, with the sector approaching ~945 TWh by 2030.
- Public Bitcoin mining operators are pivoting to AI compute
- Several listed operators have publicly repositioned mining infrastructure for HPC and AI hosting through 2024-2025. The thesis — that Bitcoin-mining hardware and AI compute share the same energy and cooling substrate — is now reflected in equity markets.
- Large compute buyers are now energy buyers
- Recent AI-infrastructure deals and power procurement moves signal that compute scale is now bottlenecked by power, not chips.
- Africa is the leverage frontier
- ~600M Africans lack reliable grid electricity while the continent has among the world's strongest solar resources.
- Bitcoin mining as flexible load
- Peer-reviewed work (Carter et al., SSRN 4634256, 2023; Menati et al., arXiv:2411.11119, 2024) shows mining can stabilize grids and absorb renewable curtailment.
How to participate
Four ways to run the thesis at your home, institution, or company.
Start mining
A device, a Bitcoin address, and an email: what a small miner needs, and what it earns.
Homes and data centres
Surplus solar at home or curtailment at scale: size the load to the energy you already have.
Academy
Lessons on mining, payouts, and energy, open to verified learners.
Developers
The open-source clients and the technical documentation behind the pool.
Non-custodial by construction: your share is written into the block's own coinbase, 97/3 to miner and platform. Bitcoin is the public path and the pool is accepting work. Onboarding needs a verified email, private endpoints stay off public pages, and public code is reviewed before release.
