The 17-acre cement slab in the middle of a Borneo industrial area once belonged to a logging company. Long ago that business abandoned the site to the elements, leaving just rudimentary structures and a four-story-tall concrete birdhouse made to lure swiftlets whose nests, built with saliva, fetch high prices in China.
But in 2023, another industry moved in: Bitcoin miners. Sheltered by a vast, sheet-metal roof, over 1,000 machines now roar away, while hundreds more sit nearby in cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked.