MAGOG Emiliano Grodzki moves his right hand across the front of a series of small, rectangular machines, each fitted with a fan blowing warm air inside a former metal factory in the Eastern Townships.

Grodzki, 42, an entrepreneur from Argentina and Bitfarms’ chief strategy officer, and the rest of the Bitfarms team modified the building to house two giant opposing walls of shelves holding thousands of powerful computing systems built for a single purpose: “mining” for digital currency.

Known as hashing, the hunt for cryptocurrency is essentially an exhaustive attempt by a computer to solve a mathematical problem. Every second, each computer in Bitfarms’ factory in Magog conducts 13.5 trillion attempts at solving a math problem.

Bitfarms’ machines are solving math problems in order to collect or mine Bitcoin, the world’s most famous digital currency. Companies have sprouted all over the world in an attempt to cash in on the cryptocurrency industry. But Bitfarms stands out.

The Montreal-area company is trying to set itself apart as much by its infrastructure and vertically integrated business model as for its attempt to reduce the social stigma associated with the industry’s voracious energy usage.

Since its inception in November 2017, Bitfarms has been rushing to retrofit factories in Quebec regions emptied out by the decline of the province’s manufacturing industries. The company leases a former Tupperware plant in Cowansville, an old carpet factory in Farnham and an ex-cocoa storage facility in St-Hyacinthe, all to mine cryptocurrency.

And it is currently turning the former Sher-Wood hockey stick factory it bought in Sherbrooke into a fifth mining operation.

Key to the company’s success is securing a stable, reliable — and relatively inexpensive — energy source. That’s where Quebec comes in, with its abundant, renewable and comparatively cheap hydroelectricity.

Hydro-Québec recently designated 668 megawatts for the growing cryptocurrency sector, more than is consumed by the province’s conventional mining industry.

But Bitfarms recognizes it also needs to partner with local communities and convince them they aren’t trying to suck as much power as possible, make a quick buck and leave. The company recently signed an electricity agreement with Sherbrooke city council that is serving as a model for how towns across the province can make money partnering with players in this new industry.

“We have a long-term mentality,” said Pierre-Luc Quimper, the 35-year-old co-founder and president of Bitfarms, who started his first website-hosting company at 14 in his New Brunswick hometown. “We want to be long-term partners.”

Bitcoin began in 2009, and its creator is unknown. Every time a Bitcoin is bought and sold online, the transaction is recorded in a public, electronic ledger.

The technology behind the ledger is called blockchain, which is composed of a series of linked “blocks” that each contain up to one megabyte worth of transaction data.

Every time a block of transactions is closed, a complex mathematical problem is created. The hashing machines located in Bitfarms’ four factories are in competition with all the other hashing computers around the world to solve the problem.

The first computer to come up with the winning number is authorized to create a new block in the chain, in which more Bitcoin transactions can be recorded.

The winning computer is also awarded a set amount of Bitcoin.

Bitfarms’ factories house at least 16,500 hashing machines between them. Together, they conduct 220 quadrillion attempts every second to solve the single math problem created when a block of Bitcoin transactions reaches capacity.

Hydro-Québec helped the Bitfarms team find locations around the province for mining operations. Then the City of Sherbrooke came knocking with a novel idea.

Cities across Quebec purchase enough electricity from Hydro-Québec to satisfy peak demands, most often during the dead of winter.

But for much of the rest of the year, the energy grids have surplus electricity, and the provincial government has been pushing municipalities to come up with ways to sell the extra power, said Christian Laprise, director of Sherbrooke’s municipal power utility.

The deal inked with Bitfarms secures the company 98 megawatts of electricity from Sherbrooke. But Bitfarms will have to reduce operations and use less energy during peak moments of the year when the grid is being taxed by residents.