The long sheds at North America’s largest bitcoin mine look endless in the Texas sun, packed with the type of machines that have helped the US to become the new global hub for the digital currency.
The operation in the quiet town of Rockdale was part of a bustling US business that received a boost from Beijing’s intensified cryptocurrency crackdown, which pushed the industry westward.
Experts say that the rule of law and cheap electricity in the US are a draw for bitcoin miners, whose energy-gulping computers race to unlock units of the currency.
Photo: AFP
“There are a lot of competitors coming into Texas because they are seeing the same thing [as] when we came here,” said Chad Everett Harris, CEO of miner Whinstone, which operates the Rockdale site owned by US company Riot Blockchain.
China was the undisputed heartland of cryptocurrency mining, with about two-thirds of the global capacity in September 2019, but last month, Beijing declared illegal all transactions involving cryptocurrency, as it seeks to launch one of its own.
Figures released on Wednesday by the University of Cambridge showed that activity in the US more than doubled in the four months to the end of August, increasing the market share held by the world’s biggest economy to 35.4 percent.
Samir Tabar, chief strategy officer at miner Bit Digital, said that the company started to pull out of China last year and accelerated that process as the crackdown intensified.
The firm has operations in the US and Canada.
“China’s bitcoin mining ban was basically an unintentional gift to the US,” he said. “Thanks to their ban, an entire sector migrated to North America — along with innovation, labor and machines.”
Some of the key pulls toward the US are simply a democratic government, a court system and the power to protect property rights.
“If you’re going to make long-term investments and accumulate wealth in a country, you want to have some confidence that it’s not going to be taken away by the government,” said David Yermack, a cryptocurrency expert at New York University.
He expected the shift to the US to be temporary, saying that places like Nordic countries have cheap and abundant renewable energy, as well as plenty of cold weather to cool the hot-running mining machines.
The steady increase in US-based mining operations has fanned the ongoing environmental criticisms of the industry’s massive annual electricity consumption — more than what the Philippines uses in a year, Cambridge University data showed.
An ongoing backlash has been fueled by concerns that the industry relies on carbon-emitting power sources that contribute to climate change.
“To think that we’re causing harm or pollution or all those things here... The majority of our power comes out of the ERCOT grid and that profile is extremely friendly to the environment,” Harris said, referring to the Texas power network operator.
According to ERCOT’s data for last year, about 46 percent of its power came from natural gas, while wind and solar combined for 25 percent, with coal at 18 percent.
The price miners pay for electricity is key, and a place like Texas is desirable because the market is deregulated, so companies can have more flexible terms, Georgetown University business school professor Viktoriya Zotova said.
“In principle, they can buy the electricity when it’s cheaper and not buy it when it’s more expensive,” she said.
While there are obvious reasons for the cryptocurrency world’s migration, some also see a bit of poetry in mining operations coming to the US from China.
Tabar said that Bit Digital has a site in Buffalo, New York, which used to be one of the country’s main manufacturing hubs, but lost jobs and prosperity as production work shifted to places like China.
“There is a bit of a poetic thing going on — it dawned on me how this is going full circle,” he said.
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
Pets are not forgotten during Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, when even Fido and Tiger get a place at the altars Mexican families set up to honor their deceased loved ones, complete with flowers, candles and photographs. Although the human dead usually get their favorite food or drink placed on altars, the nature of pet food can make things a little different. The holiday has roots in Mexican pre-Hispanic customs, as does the reverence for animals. The small, hairless dogs that Mexicans kept before the Spanish conquest were believed to help guide their owners to the afterlife, and were sometimes given
RSS