Thursday, April 4, 2019

Montana County's Battle Over Bitcoin Mining Heats Up

An ongoing effort in Missoula County to dampen the enthusiasm for Bitcoin "mining" operations in Montana is heating up, as the county has invoked a local climate emergency, which will require new cryptocurrency mining operations to offset their energy use by funding or building new renewable energy projects. The county already put an emergency interim zoning plan in place in 2018 in a bid to limit those Bitcoin mining operations, which have been flocking to areas with cheap power and a shrinking industrial base, in order to plug in their energy intensive operations. Bitcoin and other blockchain-based cryptocurrency is based on ever-increasing computing operations and algorithms, which essentially use energy consumption as the basis of cryptocurrency operations. Those computing operations are now estimated to be enough power as consumed by countries such as Ireland and Hungary. Missoula County is expected to approve those local zoning rules requires renewables offset today, according to Wired.