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For the First Time, a US City Has Banned Cryptocurrency Mining (businessinsider.com)
CaptainDork writes: The city of Plattsburgh, New York is imposing an 18-month moratorium on commercial cryptocurrency mining. The official reasoning for the moratorium is to "protect and enhance the City's natural, historic, cultural and electrical resources." Plattsburgh residents have seen skyrocketing electrical bills -- as much as $100 to $200 increases -- as a result of commercial cryptomining operations that mine for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, according to Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read, who spoke with Motherboard. The city is taking action to protect its citizens from those rising electrical bills that the city of Plattsburgh says is caused by cryptomining operations.
It turns out that commercial cryptocurrency mining operations used up so much electricity that the city of Plattsburgh exceeded its allotted monthly budget of electricity. One single cryptocurrency mining operation called Coinmint used up around 10% of the city's allotted power supply alone in January and February, according to Motherboard. When its electrical budget was exceeded in January, the city had to buy electricity from the open market at a higher cost, which was distributed among its residents.
It turns out that commercial cryptocurrency mining operations used up so much electricity that the city of Plattsburgh exceeded its allotted monthly budget of electricity. One single cryptocurrency mining operation called Coinmint used up around 10% of the city's allotted power supply alone in January and February, according to Motherboard. When its electrical budget was exceeded in January, the city had to buy electricity from the open market at a higher cost, which was distributed among its residents.
They didn't ban residential users, they banned companies from coming into their town and setting up a mining operation. The town had previously subsidized power for industrial users, in order to try to attract companies that would create jobs. The bit coin miners will just no longer be getting that subsidy, because they don't create jobs, and use up all the power forcing the town to buy it off the open market and raising the price for everyone.
two bitcoin mining operations were using 10% of the towns cheap power and increased everyone's bill by about $10 for jan and feb.
Yea, because the alternatives to capitalism have worked out so well.
Is capitalism perfect? No.
Is capitalism better than any other economic system? Clearly.
And please don't hold up Lyndon Johnson as an example of how to manage the economy, he left it a huge mess when he decided not to run for re-election.
Yes, it is a symptom of a larger disease, which is free market capitalism
Nonsense. It is a symptom of government control and the controllers being inept. This is a city utility where the overly-egalitarian management thought that charging everyone more when high-users pushed the costs up was a good idea.
Even a moment's thought would have shown why that is a bad idea. It shouldn't take Gramma getting a $400 electric bill to pay for a cryptominer's electricity to wake people up.
You might have missed -- this wasn't a free market operation to start with. The city negotiated an artificial limit on supply and a poor rate structure for reselling that supply. The fact that they have to beg the regulatory agencies for the ability to change their rate structure might also be a hint that free-market economics aren't relevant here.