Look inside the surreal world of an Icelandic bitcoin mine, where they literally make digital money

Mining is the backbone of bitcoin.

It's the process that creates new bitcoin: By contributing computing power to process transactions on the bitcoin network, "miners" are rewarded with a portion of the digital currency.

This payout makes the entire process - with the right equipment, incredibly lucrative, and has spawned a huge and surreal industry.

You can mine at home, and many people do. But companies dedicated to mining have also sprung up, some worth tens of millions of dollars.

These companies build huge data centres or "mines," that consume vast amounts of power and perform insane computations on the hunt for digital gold.

Here's a look inside one.