This US city may halt Bitcoin mining due to surge in electricity consumption

Cryptocurrency mining farm

According to a report by Wcax on March 6, Beijing time, due to the recent surge in electricity consumption, the city of Plattsburgh, New York, is considering banning Bitcoin mining activities in the city.

Bitcoin mining refers to a mechanism in which miners use computer servers to solve complex mathematical problems in the blockchain and then receive new bitcoins as rewards.

In Plattsburgh, there is a miner called Plattsburgh BTC, whose founder David Bowman began studying Bitcoin in 2014. After realizing that he could make money from it, he rented a warehouse of a local newspaper and mined it there. Plattsburgh BTC has 20 computer servers that consume a lot of electricity.

The city of Plattsburgh is concerned that the servers could cause a surge in local electricity usage.

"Our electricity usage has gone up significantly, exceeding our cap and it's impacting our ratepayers," said Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read.

According to the local power department, there are at least two virtual currency miners in Plattsburgh, and their electricity consumption has reached 11.2 megawatts. However, the power department also said that the surge in local electricity consumption in the past few months may also be due to normal seasonal fluctuations caused by cold weather.

However, the city is still considering banning commercial virtual currency mining because there is a large virtual currency miner in the neighboring city of Massena with thousands of servers and dozens of employees. The city of Plattsburgh is worried that this may happen in the city, causing electricity consumption to be overwhelmed.

But Bowman believes that this will not be a problem and there is no need to ban Bitcoin mining.

"It's important to protect citizens from the negative impacts of a surge in electricity usage, but I think there are many ways to provide more electricity for 'mining'. I don't think it's a good idea to completely ban these activities. This is something completely new," he said.

It is reported that the city of Plattsburgh will hold a public hearing on March 15 to discuss whether to stop the virtual currency mining farms in the city. (Compiled by Yang Fan)