HS Orkas CEO Asgeir Margeirsson claimed in July that the industry of crypto mining has pushed the fourth revolution, while the director of the Icelandic Institute for Intelligent Machines stated that Bitcoin miners are central to the industrial revolution that is still under way.
However, HS Orkas Sigurbergsson also argued that Bitcoin probably wont be here far into the future, claiming that the data centers that are currently used by miners will eventually become new technology incubators.
I strongly support the above quoted statements. Blockchain is about to bring an industrial revolution very soon. It's already under way but it needs more investment for further research and development to effectively leverage the technology, to explore more possibilities!
As the profitability from mining drops, mining companies will eventually look forward for other ways to use their readily available infrastructure, which can be done in two ways,
1. Either they will have to look for an altcoin to be mined with lesser difficulty and greater profitability.
2. Or use the infrastructure in to blockchain enabled business.
Or both at the same time! As the world progress more towards blockchain enabled business and industries, these power houses (read mining ops) will become an integral part of the future world and future ways of running a business. The possibilities are endless, but new innovations are required to effectively explore that!
It's good that a sparsely populated country like Iceland had understood the possibilities, while major powers are still skeptical about it!