Quebec: We are not interested in Bitcoin mining that does not generate value

The Quebec government said at a meeting on Friday, March 2, that it is “not interested” in providing cheap electricity to bitcoin miners through national utility Hydro-Quebec, Bloomberg reported.

The comments, made by Prime Minister Philippe Couillard at a conference in the capital Montreal, diverged from previous statements from Hydro-Quebec, claiming that it was disadvantageous that “bitcoin mining” did not bring “real value” to the economy.

He said:

"If you want to settle here and bring your servers to mine Bitcoin, we are not very interested in that."

“We need to add real value to our society; I don’t see the real value in just having servers mining transactions and getting new bitcoins.”

This year, Quebec has quickly appeared on the radar of cryptocurrency miners around the world. After receiving more than 30 applications in January, the utility warned that the sheer number of projects interested in setting up in the province made it “unable to get off the ground.” Bloomberg added that raising tariffs for miners is also on the agenda.

Eric Martel, CEO of Hydro-Quebec, told the magazine in an interview on February 28:

"We are limited in what we can do. I have a network with huge capacity, but I can't carry the entire planet."

Meanwhile, early last month, New York state authorities approved the operation of a Bitcoin mining farm based on the jobs and economic value that Bitcoin will bring to the local community.