Original article in Icelandic:

http://stundin.is/frett/vafasamar-tengingar-staersta-gagnavers-landsins/

QUESTIONABLE
CONNECTIONS OF
THE COUNTRIES BIGGEST
DATA CENTER
The most energy-intense data centre in Iceland hosts bitcoin - processing
and is going to use about one percent of all energy in the country. The
operation is financed by the former Prime Minister of Georgia, who has
been linked to corruption. The profit amounts billions of Kroner but it is
unclear where from.
6. SEPTEMBER 2015 , KL. 09:00

Jn Bjarki Magnsson
jonbjarki@stundin.is
Advania built the most energy-intense data centre of Iceland in Reykjanesb before local
authorities approved the structure. The data centre is designed for bitcoin - processing and
will use about one percent of the countrys energy. The operation is financed by the former
Prime Minister of Georgia, one of the richest men in the world. The profit amounts billions but
it is unclear where from.
Security cameras monitor three huge warehouses rising from the desert, close to the former US
military base Minesheii. In the distance, cars rush by on Reykjanesbraut. At a glance, one
might think that these three corrugated iron buildings were little more than old depots. Those
who come closer however, realize soon that it is not. The noise of the fans that runs along the
warehouse indicates the thousands of computers being cooled indoors. Mining in the 21st
century will take place beyond these walls. It is not about the digging of traditional gold; but
gold data, namely Bitcoins.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is an electronic currency. Neither controlled by any organization nor managed by the
international banking system. Thus, a person in Georgia transfers money to someone in Iceland

through the Bitcoin system without the involvement of several financial institutions. Supporters
of the electronic currency point out that Bitcoin allows easy trade between countries while critics
say it is a breeding ground for illegal activities such as drug trafficking or money laundering.
The Bitcoin currency is not printed like Dollars,
Euros or Kroner - they are sent into the system via
so-called man managed mining but also
increasingly by particular Bitcoin-production
plants. These propose the confirmation of entries,
which take place using Bitcoin, to the CPU of the
computer and then arrange them in a ledger
(Block chain). There are 21 million Bitcoins in the
world; roughly half already in circulation. The
more mining of the coin, the more powerful
computers need to "dig" for new units.
Surveillance around the clock: Data centre Mjlnir
is monitored by security cameras around the clock.
Photo: John Bjrk MAGNSSON

VIDEO: Bitcoin explained in 3 minutes! https://youtu.be/VrRBq3niQM0

Much energy for receiving jobs

In spring 2014 the data centre Mjlnir was specially designed and built for the international
company BitFury. BitFury is the most productive Bitcoin -processing company in the world with
a daily production of an equivalent of 18 million Kroner, only during last week. Bidzina
Ivanishvili, former Prime Minister of Georgia, who has been involved in money laundering and
various corruption cases in his homeland, has invested millions of dollars in the business. The
company recently got presented a 185 square meter plot for the data centre. With the intended
production in Iceland, BitFury gets back over three billion Kroner annual income. Given the

nature of the operation, however, it is likely that the tax magistrate will have difficulties finding
the profit.
The operations of the data centre Mjlnir take place on the sbr-site at the south coast of
Reykjanesb. Representatives of BitFury arrived in Iceland in autumn 2013, in search of
partners to build data centres especially designed for their purposes. An agreement was
concluded with the software company Advania and the
buildings built in the haste of only one and a half months. The
company started as soon as the premises were
weatherproof - before the case had been passed in the
municipality or building permits were granted. The
representative of the Building authority Reykjanesbr
and the head of construction point on each other and
postpone discussions to a later point of time.

One of the richest men in the world

Bidzina Ivanishvili, former Prime
Minister of Georgia
and one of the richest men in the world,

has
invested millions of dollars in BitFury
Photo: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Advania operates Mjlnir, which serves about fifteen customers. BitFury however is by far the
largest customer of the data centre and uses thereby between 70-80 percent of its energy.
Mjlnirs total power demand amounts about 10 megawatt but will be up to 13 megawatts once it
is completely finished in fall. 113.88 GW-hours per year - that is 8.4% of HS Orkas electricity
production in 2014 or about one percent of all energy in the country (0.87 %). Activities are kept
at the minimum in this most energy-intense data centre of the country. Eyjlfur Magns
Kristinsson, director of the operational solutions department at Advania said the company does
not have any employees they can 100% earmark for the data centre. Asked about FTEs he
says: " Its a little difficult to assess; but at least five FTEs as well as contractors.

"Most disturbing technology"

BitFury is the largest Bitcoin mining company in
the West, with conducting 13% of all mining
worldwide. Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury and
Valery Nebesny, CTO of the company, founded
BitFury in 2011; back then residing in Ukraine.
"We started thinking about this in 2010 but the
first real attempts began in 2011", said Vavilov in a
recent interview with Bitcoinist. Their
companions have realized bit by bit which major
force Bitcoin could become. "This is possibly the
most disturbing technology of the next twenty
years."
BitFurys director Valery Vavilov is CEO of BitFury and
came to the country in autumn 2013 to build a data centre.

BitFury leads the development of new machinery for Bitcoin mining. Last February for example,
the company introduced a new generation of ASIC chips. - Bundles of tiny processors with
tremendous calculation capabilities. The chips have 28 nanometre- channels and are the
strongest-existing in the business. Vavilov recently explained the functionality of this equipment
in an interview with CNBC:

VIDEO: BitFury on CNBC https://youtu.be/WXr8O3sDsnE

The company uses its own equipment for the mining and sells it to other parties. Thus, the
company digitalBTC for example, announced last years purchase of BitFury equipment which
is intended to be set up in the companys data centre in Iceland.

The philosophy of speed

The Bitcoin exchange rate rose by 10.000 percent in 2013, increasing from twelve dollar in the
beginning of the year up to 1,200 dollar in November. In June 2013 BitFurys executives finally
finished their first ASIC chip for mining. Therefore, they travelled the world in search of a
suitable location for the data centre. The Director of BitFury arrived in Iceland in autumn 2013,
in touch with the representatives of the countrys main data centre. In November BitFury
already had established 75 computer servers for the Icelandic data centre, performing their first
testing.
Immediately the companys directors started looking for power delivery and the possibility of a
keen build up."We talked to the power companies in a country about our plans to build a new

data centre and we asked how long it would take them to deliver 20 megawatts and they said
We need 9 to 12 months. We obviously chose another option. ", said Vavilov in a recent
interview. Then he described the company's philosophy which is about speed and simplicity.
"And that is why the name of the company is BitFury Bitmeans 0 or 1 or simple and Fury
means super fast."
The BitFury director came to Iceland to design and develop a new data centre. "We design it
completely ourselves and do it all here indoors; without outsourcing to other companies," said
Vavilov in a recent interview with CoinDesk; referring, amongst others, to the data centre
Mjlnir. "We are making our own silicon: indoors and custom designed; we are building our
own server: in here and custom designed and we are building our own data centre, also in here
and custom designed."

"Quick and dirty solution"

Stundin got in touch with local industrialists, who were dealing with Vavilov. "He said he was
from Ukraine and he somehow was very clandestine.", says one interlocutor. Vavilov wanted to
build a data centre already in December. When it became clear that the build up would take
longer he suggested various solutions to accelerate the constructions.
Thus the interviewee describes to Stundin how the BitFury CEO was talking a lot about the socalled "quick and dirty solution." It involved to build the shell construction as soon as possible
but to connect the hardware to electricity immediately. Subsequently the loose ends could be
settled. "He wanted everything faster and super cheap.", says the interviewee of the Icelandic
data centre world. Then, one day Vavilov moved Georgian workers into the country to speed up
the construction.
To keep energy costs to a minimum was absolutely fundamental to the BitFury CEO. Thus, the
water cooling was too energy-intensive and expensive for what he had in mind. He wanted to
take advantage of the Icelandic wind conditioning. Also, he planned to set up an ordinary fire
extinguisher instead of an entire fire protection system to save costs. Interlocutors point out that
this is like extinguishing a volcano with a water bottle. Not everyone was impressed by the ideas
and time will show how BitFury wont find partners in this country.

Changed name

The director of BitFury was long described as a serial-entrepreneur on the business homepage.
He was an advocate for the illegal torrent site Ex.ua from 2010 to 2012 but the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States put the site, amongst others, on the black list "Notorious
Markets List" in 2012. On the website Venture Capital Dispatch it is quoted by the BitFury
spokesman that Vavilov had certainly been involved in the site briefly. "He was not, however, cofounder and is not connected to the company today."
Until recently, there were no details of age, ethnicity, locality
education of the co-founder Nebesbys.His pictures only
show a masked man who reminds of a racing driver. In
review, the investigations since last July, conducted by
BNE Intellinews journalist Graham Stack, stated that
little or no information was found on Nebesby in Ukraine. The
reason is simple - the current CTO of BitFury named
Shchedrine had his name changed. Nebesby himself says that
reason for the name change was a human tragedy. He
denies that the case has anything to do with his escape
from the alleged cybercrime past.

or

the

Valery Nebesby Co-founder of BitFury, changed his name but denies

that it is related to his escape from the alleged cybercrime past.

The BNE- journalist reports on three more companies Nebesby is connected to but let change
his name: Crystalys Media, Cilaria Trading and Nous -Tech Solutions Ltd; all registered in
Cyprus. Nous -Tech developed the notorious malware Ultimate Defender which notifies users
mistakenly, making them believe that their computer is infected with a virus and then offers a
costly solution to the problem. Nebesby saw the published register of the U.-defender website in
2005, on behalf of the Nous -Tech. He asserts that he has left the company before the program
was ready but said it was "perfectly legal anti-virus software and that they found themselves in
an investigation without reason.

Adventurous ideas

In the media coverage about BitFury, their data centre in Finland is often mentioned. It is,
however, not active anymore. Niko Punin, the current head of business development at BitFury,
founded the company BFSB BitFury Strikes Back in 2013 in the small village Kemi on
Kemin-island in southwest Finland. The company produced the hardware for Bitcoin mining.
In January 2014 the negotiations between BitFury and creditors of steel manufacturer FN steel
regarding a possible acquisition BitFurys of an old steel mill in Taalintehdas begun - a village
not far from Kemi . At the beginning of the negotiations BitFury received permission to lease
the old plant to mine Bitcoins. The negotiations then stagnated and there seemed to be a
disagreement about which buildings should be included in the contract.

At a conference on the future of the village on April 24 BitFury was introduced as an

international company which already has existing data centres in Iceland and Georgia.
Interestingly, neither of them had been built; it then only started. Punin and Tuomo
Tammenp, his partners, then analyzed how the purchase of BitFury could open various
employment opportunities and create jobs. They also introduced their idea to create a special
currency village to attract tourists. This might be a little like playing a video game or like in
Disneyland", said Punin. However, the idea came down to nothing; like others. The negotiations
ended in talk in November 2014 and at the end of the year the plant was off the table.

Built without building permits

Shortly before or in the first months of 2014, agreements about the build up of a 8.5 megawatt
data centre were passed between Advania and BitFury. In April, Advania attended to rent a
21,409 square meter site for future business operations from the Keflavk Airport Development
ehf. Kadeco. Kjartan Eiriksson, manager of Kadeco, said the party has signed a land lease on
April 15th. Gestur G. Gestsson, CEO of Advania, signed on behalf of the software company. The
contract applies for 50 years and amounts 1.9 million Kroner per year, based on the current
construction cost. Interestingly, it is not dated until July 1st. It was not yet officially registered
", says Kjartan in a written reply to Stundins questions. "This contract was revised and officially
registered in July. "

The whole administrative management of the case raises serious questions. On May 28 th the
Environmental and Planning Committee Reykjanesbr approved the plot application from
Advania. At the same meeting, it was agreed to send forward a detailed plan to the planning
department. At this point, however Advania had already built the data centre. Photographs,
which Stundin shot on May 29th or the day after, show that the data centre Mjlnir was already
built. On the first one, you can see the right side of the hall; fully installed and working. On the

next photo it seems like almost all left rows are connected to electricity. On the third, one sees
where a hole had been cut in the plastic outside of the building wall to cool the data centre,
where no cooling system was in service. It seems likely that this has only been experimental
operations for counselling before running it on full power. "There was massive noise and heat",
says an informant who was at the scene. BitFury equipment was turned on and started to grind
in Iceland.

May 29th Interlocutor of Stundin visiting the data centre on 29 May 2014
before all major permits for the project have been granted.

Within one and a half months

Two days after the photographs were taken or on May 3th, the Majority of Independence party
Reykjanesbr lost the local elections. Bvar Jnsson, chairman of the local Independence
party, proclaimed the first meeting after the elections on June 3th. In the meeting the old
majority agreed on the plans for the Mjlnir - estate. rni Sigfsson, mayor, was among the
attendee. Stundins interviewees, who work in the range of politics in Reykjanes, relate the issue
directly to the election. "This was the first day of a couple for the election. It was foreseeable."
The issue seems dubios. "Some men obtained appointments about the authorization to build
one, two and then ten. It does not surprise me that it has been settled."

The plastic hole Here you can see how the men cut a hole
in the plastic to cool the equipment.

According to the representative of the Planning

commission Reykjanesbr the building permit
was not granted for the project until the June
6th, 2014; about a week after the pictures were
taken. - The construction of the data centre only
took one and a half months.

Gold rush
"There was an absolute gold rush about
this.", said one of the data centre
industrialists. Representatives of BitFury wanted to get their new
equipment running in record time because they knew what was
happening to that industry. It was messed up to grab this bite.
Thats why one big client arrived with a pile of gadgets., he says
and refers to BitFury. By building the warehouse without the
required authorization, Advania has gone far beyond the normal
framework.

Subsequent approval rni Sigfsson was mayor of Reykjanesbr

when the just-failed Majority of the Independence party
authorized the project subsequently.

Eyjlfur from Advania says he has no insight into this part of the project. "Although we are the
contractual partner we are no experts in these matters. We only participated through our
engineers and consultants in this part." Asked if Advania was working on regular terms during
the construction of the data centre he says: "I do not have much experience of the construction
procedure and dont know what is regular and what is not. The building of Mjlnir at least did
not take a long time." He says the construction have created an opportunity to get even more
customers to the country. "The important thing with this project is, as I see it, that there was an
investment for a major project in an area with considerable unemployment."

VIDEO: BitFury Iceland Data Centre https://youtu.be/jvGtrflL8zA

Recognized infringement

"There was a completely furious contractor," says Einar Jlusson, representative of the
Construction Commission Reykjanesbr, to Stundin. He refers the responsibility strictly to
Kristinn Eirksson, construction site manager of the project. "I thought this project was
forgotten", said Kristinn when asked about the topic. He says he does not see "a reason to
handle anything special" about this as this little project has already been discussed. Kristinn,
who works for the engineering company of Johann Indriason, readily admits that he has
violated building regulations and the law at the site. "We had a challenging project and all
agreed to start the constructions on our own responsibility before the building permit was
issued." Article 9 of the Act on structures from 2010 determines that there may not be build
structures "without the permission for the relevant building."Article 58 of the Act also
determines that the infringement can result fines or imprisonment of up to two years.

When the construction representative of Reykjanesbaer is asked how authorities responded

when it became clear that the entire data centre had risen on the doorstep of the town, he says
that people gave the chance to "settle the affairs." Asked what this implies he says: "Well, settle
the applications and submit the necessary documents to build this."Article 55 of the Act on
constructions determines that local representatives of the construction commission may stop
the structure when there are no permissions and order the closure of the structure. "It now is
what it is and of course we have to give people a chance to correct their part," says Einar.

Built without permissions The data centre was built before

all major permits for the project had been granted.
Photo: Picasa

Kristinn, the construction manager, claims to have experienced a lot of pressure about the
mentioned project. Once the
contract for a particular
operation is settled, like with the
data centre, there is not much
patience for building a house. He emphasizes that
the project has been a welcomed;
boosting the craftsmen in the Southwest since
there have been little constructions
in the area for a long time. The
construction manager also
insists that the construction commission has
always been clear about the fact that the structure takes place without its required authorization.
"Of course, this was done with the knowledge of the planning and construction commission."
Stundin has forwarded this statement to Einar Jlusson, construction commission
representative of Reykjanesbr; but no response has been received.

"It flew off the sea into the data centre"

The high speed of constructions and slack finish caused sea salt in the computer equipment in
July 2014 and thereby a considerable damage. Advania sent a ten-man squad, friends and
employees of the data centre, to clean the sea salt off the equipment. "It flew off the sea into the
data centre," said a man who worked as a freelancer cleaning computer equipment. He says that
about 1/8 of the equipment in the centre has been destroyed. "It looked like they were micro
processors. We had to rinse the salt of it.

We were asked to go in there, clear all the equipment and rinse the salt from the damaged ones.
We moved the equipment up to the Thor Data Centre and cleaned it all there."
The cleaning took two days and equipment that was too damaged was thrown away."There was
some kind of little secrecy about this when I was working there." The interlocutor is one of those
who felt the pressure the BitFury directors caused, advancing the tremendous speed of the
constructions. "I think this is pretty much their fault. From what I heard they were putting
pressure on Advania to get the centre running although it was not ready yet.

Regarding the salt - before we set up the filters weve got a lot of heavy wind in July last year ",
says Eyjlfur Magnus Kristinsson, Director of the Operational Solutions department at Advania,
when asked about this issue.No one expected such weather this time of year. The filters had no
priority before the upcoming summer holidays and the thereby caused deceleration of the
constructions." He says he is not aware of a lot of pressure from the BitFury executives.

The energy runs out

and
their
and
"We
July that

BitFury began its full force mining in the data centres Georgia
Iceland in June 2014. In the same month HS Orka rejected
request for a big power contract with brief delivery because the
company had just settled a similar contract with another party
had to comply.
dont comment on issues of individual customers", says Asgeir
Margeirsson, CEO of HS Orka. The Frttabla reported last
HS Orka also cannot sell electricity which the company
produced or mobilised via other methods for energy-intensive
projects because electricity is tied to the power purchase agreement
with an aluminium smelter in Helguvk.

Heavy sea breeze Eyjlfur Magns from Advania says

the heavy sea breezes have caused damage to the equipment.

"There is no power in stock and we sell all our production", says Fridrik Fridriksson, distribution
manager at HS Orka. In between we purchase energy from third parties." He said that it cannot
be considered acceptable to sell about 8.4 percent of the annual HS Orka energy production to
an operation which does not even expect a 5-10 years life span.
Doubling the income

To figure out how much income

BitFury makes by the mining
production in Iceland it is
necessary to know which
equipment they are using and
how much energy the running
of the equipment takes. Eyjlfur
Magns Kristinsson, director of
operational solutions
department at Advania, said the
total power of Mjlnir today
amounts about 10 megawatt
hour. The aim is to increase this
up to 13 megawatt in fall.
Sources of Stundin report that BitFury is already using 7.5 megawatt.
13 Megawatt hour With its completed constructions in fall,
the data centre will need 13 megawatt hour power in total. Photo: Picasa

Eyjlfur says the BitFury representatives replaced old computer equipment with new versions in
summer. This equipment has more than doubled the productivity. The new 28nm- ASIC chips
which BitFury introduced last winter, returns exactly 2.5 times more productive than the old
one.
Looking at the current processing speed of the new device (0.2 joules - per - gig hash), the total
used energy of BitFury in Mjlnir (7.5 MW), the damages because of the computers (14.5%), the
energy for the data centres operations itself (2 %), the current rate of Bitcoin ($ 230.76) and the
calculations of the Bitcoin accounting machines online, we can assume the total BitFury income
of the mining in Mjlnir will amount around 254 million Kroner this month.
Profit of billions
Simplified we estimate the decrease of the revenues by ten to twenty million Kroner a month, in
which the level of difficulties increases continually. However, the aim is to use it completely and
BitFury will rise 9-10 megawatts per year. Based on previous assumptions and the current
production but expecting rising energy consumption up to 10 megawatts hour, the estimated
income of BitFury amounts about 338 million per month.
The total earning of the BitFury mining Mjlnir can therefore easily be put in numbers: over
three billion Icelandic Kroner in the coming year. This can of course grow if the Bitcoin develops
in the near future as many expect, including the BitFury CEO. However, it is unclear where the
earnings appear - as tax offices around the world wonder.

Landsvirkjun offers energy to the data centre for 43 dollars per megawatt hour. Advania

forwarded this information to HS Veitur, cashing about 2,000 Kroner per megawatt hour for the
distribution of electricity. The electricity costs of a 10 megawatt utilization correlates 661 million
Kroner a year. Thus, according to our source, the costs for the services provided by Advania for
BitFury run in the range of 200-300 million Kroner a year. It is clear that the BitFury profits of
the Mjlnir mining could run on or over two billion Icelandic Kroner a year.

The Georgian Dream"

In addition to operations in Iceland, BitFury owns a 20 megawatt Bitcoin - mining plant in
Georgia which, as the company says, is the largest of its kind worldwide. The data centre arose
within one month in the city of Gori, eastern Georgia, in July last year- about the same time like
Mjlnir. In a recent advertisement of the company one can hear the computer voice gloomy
describing how BitFury set up the worlds "biggest electronic currency" within only one month.

VIDEO: BitFury Bitcoin Data Centre https://youtu.be/aaCCfjsO0UA

The Georgia Co-Investment Fund, an investment fund owned by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a former
Prime Minister of Georgia, presented half of the capital for the projects - a total of 10 million
dollars. Seeing Ivanishvili financing the BitFury data centres has attracted worldwide attention
since it is said that he is "over and all around" in Georgia. He is by far the richest man of the
country and indeed one of the richest men in the world with assets of 670 billion Icelandic
Kroner. In 2011 he was stripped of his citizenship. The Georgian government confiscated
millions of dollars from a bank owned by him on suspicion of money laundering.
Responding, Ivanishvili stepped onto the political stage and lead the coalition "Georgian dream"
to victory. He served as Prime Minister of Georgia for over a year until he resigned to pass on
the power to another party member, to reign for many years as "his mission had succeeded".
Although Ivanishvili is officially powerless, many believe that he still controls the country
behind scenes. Kornely Kaka Chia, professor for political science at the State University of Tblisi,
for example said that Ivanishvili is a "non-democratic politician outside the separation of power;
nevertheless he makes decisions that put Georgia in a very vulnerable position when it comes to
democracy and foreign policy."

Living in a glass castle

In June, BitFury announced that the company planned to invest 100 million dollars in the third
Bitcoin-mining plant, the by far largest of its kind with a capacity of 100 megawatt hour. The
data centre will build on the back of the notorious Gldani prison in Georgia and constructions
are already ongoing. The company also has plans to construct a special technology park in the
country, with the aim to attract foreign companies. The Georgian journalist Nino Bakradze
reported in early August that BitFury had received plots of 185 thousand square meters in
Gldani for about 56 Icelandic Kroner. Like before, Ivanishilis investment fund co- finances the
construction.

In recent years, western media broached the issue of billionaire

Ivanishvili and his wealth quite often. He lives in a
108000 square meter glass castle overlooking the
Georgian capital Tblisi. He also owns his private zoo with penguins, lemurs and zebras in
a village in western Georgia as well as a huge art collection
with works by Henry Moore, Gilbert & George and Pablo
Picasso, stored in a vault in London. The collection has an
estimated value of about one billion dollar. His son, the
nineteen-year-old Bera, is a famous rapper in his
homeland, rapping for example with Snoop Dog in
a beautiful studio which Ivanishvili had built up in
the Rustavelli theater of Tbilisi. Bera wrote the
song "Georgian Dream" but it has precisely the
title Ivanshvili used for his election confederation.

The glass castle Bidzina Ivanishvili lives in a

108 thousand square meter glass castle overlooking
Tblisi, capital of Georgia.

No answers

The Dutch estate association of Bitfury Holding BV found the subsidiary company Bitfury
Iceland ehf. on 24 April 2014. The company is registered with half a million Kroner capital
resources, according to the commercial registry. The association did not submit a financial
report for 2014. Vavilov and Margeir Valur Sigurdsson, attorney of ADVEL law office, are part of
the company board. When questioned about BitFurys activities in Iceland Margeir said:
"Basically, in the Icelandic data centre the servers are run. They basically sell their servers
computing power."

The company is registered on Suurlandsbraut 18, where the lawyers office of ADVEL can be
found. Margeir does not want to comment any further on the operation and says that the
connection between ADVEL attorneys and BitFury Iceland ehf. is that they are BitFurys lawyers
in Iceland. "I can naturally say little about this without the permission of the foreign owners of
the company." He offered to come by Stundin for further questions concerning the CEO of
BitFury. On 27 August a journalist sent questions, also asking how many people work for Bitfury
Iceland ehf.; if the company pays taxes on the mining in Iceland and whether the operation will
be cancelled if the Bitcoin collapses. No answers were received when this newspaper was
printed.
Noise pollution
According to the information of the land registry the private limited company DGH ehf owns
and operates the premises around Mjlnir. The company is completely owned by the law service
Aktis ehf which runs both Fjeldsted and Blndal law services. Business owners are Jhannes
Sigursson and Sigurur Logi Jhannesson, lawyers at Aktis. Jhannes does not answer any
questions in written form of Stundin regarding the companys activities. Sigurdur Logi though,
said he's not familiar with owning it. "Uhhhh, in Mjlnir? Jahh, you are getting ridiculous now. I
did not even come close to it. I do not know why I should be registered for it. It's simply not true.
", he says when asked about DGH ehf. When a reporter explains to him that he is a 11 percent
shareholder in Aktis which owns DGH ehf, he says: "Yes, I just dont know so."
Stundins sources reported about the activities, to the discontent of the Reykjanesbjar
inhabitants. Hereupon, people criticized for example the low number of jobs created by this
energy-intensive data centre. As previously mentioned, Advania only expects a five year life
span. BitFury on the other hand runs their own equipment in the data centre and therefore
needs employees. With them the life span of the data centre could add up to 5-10 years. For
comparison, the data centre Verne Global uses far less energy than Mjlnir and employs 40
people. Furthermore the residents of Njarvk complained because of noise from the centre.
"You can hear something buzzing from there.", said an interlocutor. This refers to the noise of
the fans which can sometimes sound like the noise of a jet or thunder. "At some point you could
hear the sound around the clock. But now it's like on / off; it also depends on the wind
direction."