Pushed by an advocacy group, Arkansas became the first state to shield noisy cryptocurrency operators from unhappy neighbors. A furious backlash has some lawmakers considering a statewide ban.
On a sweltering July evening, the din from thousands of computers mining for Bitcoins pierced the night. Nearby, Matt Brown, a member of the Arkansas legislature, monitored the noise alongside a local magistrate.
As the two men investigated complaints about the operation, Mr. Brown said, a security guard for the mine loaded rounds into an AR-15-style assault rifle that had been stored in a car.
“He wanted to make sure that we knew he had his gun — that we knew it was loaded,” Mr. Brown, a Republican, said in an interview.
The Bitcoin outfit here, 45 minutes north of Little Rock, is one of three sites in Arkansas owned by a network of companies embroiled in tense disputes with residents, who say the noise generated by computers performing trillions of calculations per second ruins lives, lowers property values and drives away wildlife.
Scores of the operations have popped up in recent years across the United States. When a mining computer lands on numbers that Bitcoin’s algorithm accepts, the payout is currently worth about a quarter-million dollars. The more computers an operation has, the better chance of earning the payout.
I used to be well into crypto and a proponent of it (years ago) but now I think it’s getting pretty idiotic; this is nonsensical.
I still think the tech or at least the idea of the tech to be really interesting. That said, I’ve basically written it off as a scam and bad for the environment at this point.
Hopefully proof-of-stake chains will continue developing and offer some usefulness beyond just the perceived value in scarcity and proof-of-work “assets”.
I just keep hanging onto my btc, you know, in case moon.
Proof of stake helps a lot and the community should continue to push for every coin to transistion.
It will always be popular for buying drugs online.