10 ms·

Bitcoin Miners Flock to New York’s Remote Corners, but Get Chilly Reception

ilamont 8y ago
This area of Northern New York is very economically depressed, and it's interesting to see some of the businesses that set up shop there, or set up their supply chains to draw from that region. They often promise lots of jobs, but few deliver. Chobani was one of the few that has helped the economy (through support for the local dairy industry, see https://magicvalley.com/news/local/chobani-not-a-windfall-for-new-york-dairymen/article_28076a32-b2c1-11e1-abba-0019bb2963f4.html https://magicvalley.com/news/local/chobani-not-a-windfall-fo...) but others such as the large-scale wind farms across the region use hundreds of workers from elsewhere to build and maintain the turbines, and don't have many permanent local jobs (http://northcountrynow.com/news/hopkinton-wind-advisory-board-wont-expand-areas-where-generators-can-be-built-0196294 http://northcountrynow.com/news/hopkinton-wind-advisory-boar...) The New York Times should have dug into the claims from the Bitcoin miners about job creation ("Coinmint told state officials it would eventually employ 150 people in Massena") as it looks like (based on the descriptions of Coinmint's existing ops) there are only a few people needed to manage what they already have, they are not committing to any large-scale building projects, and much of the mining gear is imported. Local news orgs have more reporting about the bitcoin miners and the impact on the region: http://northcountrynow.com/business/blockchain-industries-pulling-out-massena-nypa-moratorium-puts-coinmint-plans-jeopardy http://northcountrynow.com/business/blockchain-industries-pu... http://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/snake-oil-alert-blockchain-industries-says-massena-resident-0230614 http://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/snake-oil-alert-block... Incidentally, this area is quite beautiful and cheap to live and run a business in. In many of these small cities you can buy a really nice house for $100,000-$200,000. It's about two hours south of Ottawa, a bit further to Montreal and Syracuse, and includes the northern part of the Adirondacks as well as the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, and Lake Champlain region. The college town of St. Lawrence University is Canton, located in St. Lawrence county, and there are state colleges in Potsdam and Plattsburgh. A few cities have set up economic development zones and incentives for companies to relocate there including Ogdensburg, which sits next to one of the bridges to Canada, and I believe Watertown NY, as well.
- drharby 8y ago
  I grew up in that neck of the woods. Drove through aroumd 2012. It very much is economically depressed but not THAT depressed. It feels just, cozy and small townish. Lovely piece of Americana, imo
thanatos_dem 8y ago
“all seeking to capitalize on the soaring value of digital currencies, like Bitcoin” Given the trend the last few months, I’m not sure “soaring” is the adjective I’d choose...
- fake-name 8y ago
  It's soaring, just in a ballistic arc.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
DINKDINK 8y ago
>Mr. Recny asked why an enterprise that required only a few people to run it should be able to drive up the operating costs of a company that employed about 500. Why should an enterprise that requires only about 500 people to run it be able to drive up the operating costs of a company that employed about 2,000? and other such logic from "the only justified subsidy is my subsidy" camp. >The concerns are part of a broader battle over the enormous carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining, which on a global scale uses as much energy as a medium-sized country. >But the iconic American corporations that abandoned plants in Massena left behind the precious resource that drew them here in the first place: abundant, cheap electricity flowing from a dam in the St. Lawrence River. So the source of the power a hydroelectric dam. That's about as low of GHG per kWh as you're going to get. "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas". If they ban these miners, like was done in some Canadian provinces, they'll potentially move to an area with higher GHG per kWh. Since mining is more location agnostic than other production services, it's natural that it be located in economically remote but low-GHG, power/energy rich locations.
- badge 8y ago
  The real irony here is that the Bitcoin/Ethereum miners are setting up hardware which runs software designed to maximize inefficiency for the sake of maintaining a system designed for money laundering and tax evasion. Rather than use their equipment for work that's useful to humanity like Folding@Home or BOINC these mining operations are running what amounts to a foundry of space heaters trying to compute a lottery number in return for poker chips at a speculative casino.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    > work that's useful to humanity You could argue that having currency transactions based on distributed trust is useful to humanity.
    - saalweachter 8y ago
      You could, but no one ever seems to do a good job of it.
Proven 8y ago
It's Chilly inside and it's chilly outside
eudora 8y ago
Is there any work being done to make Bitcoin not consume all that energy? It's hard to support when it's so wasteful of a critical resource. Are they trying to go proof of stake?
- bogomipz 8y ago
  I'm not familiar with "proof of stake", how does that make mining less wasteful in terms of resources?
  - cdiddy2 8y ago
    Its doesn't have any mining at all. You put your coins in a smart contract that allows you to get randomly selected to create blocks from time to time, if you do something wrong then some of your coins are taken from you, if you do everything right you get a portion of the fees and/or a bit of inflation. There are lots of slightly different variants of it though
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      Interesting. Is there a practical reason limiting its' adoption?
      - cdiddy2 8y ago
        It doesnt have the same history of security that proof of work has so its just newer and hard to get the incentives correct to create a secure network. Ethereum is working on moving to it and some others as well.
        bogomipz 8y ago
        Thanks. I just found the following article about "proof of stake" in case anyone else is: interested: https://hackernoon.com/what-is-proof-of-stake-8e0433018256 https://hackernoon.com/what-is-proof-of-stake-8e0433018256
- 8y ago
plankers 8y ago
Love watching people cry about bitcoin miners increasing the overall efficacy of electricity use. If you didn't want people moving in and using your cheap electricity, you shouldn't have made it so cheap! Price stabilization in action.
- eli 8y ago
  If you walked into Starbucks every day and took most of the sugar packets so that they're aren't enough for all the other customers, proclaiming "they should've charged $0.10 each!" when caught would probably not earn you much sympathy from the regular customers.
  - plankers 8y ago
    That would be a good analogy if there were government price controls on sugar packets at Starbucks. Or if electricity was free. As it stands, it's a pretty poor analogy.
tjpaudio 8y ago
I fully understand this reaction. Crypo is delivering on none of it's promises and leaving an ugly mark on the production side. Transactions are way too slow for retail, decentralization is a joke because the largest mining pools are manipulating the supply with less transparency than national currencies, the value is too volatile to entice people to use it for anything other than speculation, and it is literally the most environmentally destructive modern technology at the moment. If miners moved into my town you bet my ass I would be at town hall telling them to fuck off.
- nil_pointer 8y ago
  If your area has cheap electricity, chances are miners are already there.

This area of Northern New York is very economically depressed, and it's interesting to see some of the businesses that set up shop there, or set up their supply chains to draw from that region. They often promise lots of jobs, but few deliver. Chobani was one of the few that has helped the economy (through support for the local dairy industry, see https://magicvalley.com/news/local/chobani-not-a-windfall-for-new-york-dairymen/article_28076a32-b2c1-11e1-abba-0019bb2963f4.html https://magicvalley.com/news/local/chobani-not-a-windfall-fo...) but others such as the large-scale wind farms across the region use hundreds of workers from elsewhere to build and maintain the turbines, and don't have many permanent local jobs (http://northcountrynow.com/news/hopkinton-wind-advisory-board-wont-expand-areas-where-generators-can-be-built-0196294 http://northcountrynow.com/news/hopkinton-wind-advisory-boar...) The New York Times should have dug into the claims from the Bitcoin miners about job creation ("Coinmint told state officials it would eventually employ 150 people in Massena") as it looks like (based on the descriptions of Coinmint's existing ops) there are only a few people needed to manage what they already have, they are not committing to any large-scale building projects, and much of the mining gear is imported. Local news orgs have more reporting about the bitcoin miners and the impact on the region: http://northcountrynow.com/business/blockchain-industries-pulling-out-massena-nypa-moratorium-puts-coinmint-plans-jeopardy http://northcountrynow.com/business/blockchain-industries-pu... http://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/snake-oil-alert-blockchain-industries-says-massena-resident-0230614 http://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/snake-oil-alert-block... Incidentally, this area is quite beautiful and cheap to live and run a business in. In many of these small cities you can buy a really nice house for $100,000-$200,000. It's about two hours south of Ottawa, a bit further to Montreal and Syracuse, and includes the northern part of the Adirondacks as well as the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, and Lake Champlain region. The college town of St. Lawrence University is Canton, located in St. Lawrence county, and there are state colleges in Potsdam and Plattsburgh. A few cities have set up economic development zones and incentives for companies to relocate there including Ogdensburg, which sits next to one of the bridges to Canada, and I believe Watertown NY, as well.

drharby 8y ago
I grew up in that neck of the woods. Drove through aroumd 2012. It very much is economically depressed but not THAT depressed. It feels just, cozy and small townish. Lovely piece of Americana, imo

thanatos_dem 8y ago

“all seeking to capitalize on the soaring value of digital currencies, like Bitcoin” Given the trend the last few months, I’m not sure “soaring” is the adjective I’d choose...

fake-name 8y ago
It's soaring, just in a ballistic arc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

DINKDINK 8y ago

>Mr. Recny asked why an enterprise that required only a few people to run it should be able to drive up the operating costs of a company that employed about 500. Why should an enterprise that requires only about 500 people to run it be able to drive up the operating costs of a company that employed about 2,000? and other such logic from "the only justified subsidy is my subsidy" camp. >The concerns are part of a broader battle over the enormous carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining, which on a global scale uses as much energy as a medium-sized country. >But the iconic American corporations that abandoned plants in Massena left behind the precious resource that drew them here in the first place: abundant, cheap electricity flowing from a dam in the St. Lawrence River. So the source of the power a hydroelectric dam. That's about as low of GHG per kWh as you're going to get. "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas". If they ban these miners, like was done in some Canadian provinces, they'll potentially move to an area with higher GHG per kWh. Since mining is more location agnostic than other production services, it's natural that it be located in economically remote but low-GHG, power/energy rich locations.

badge 8y ago
The real irony here is that the Bitcoin/Ethereum miners are setting up hardware which runs software designed to maximize inefficiency for the sake of maintaining a system designed for money laundering and tax evasion. Rather than use their equipment for work that's useful to humanity like Folding@Home or BOINC these mining operations are running what amounts to a foundry of space heaters trying to compute a lottery number in return for poker chips at a speculative casino.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  > work that's useful to humanity You could argue that having currency transactions based on distributed trust is useful to humanity.
  - saalweachter 8y ago
    You could, but no one ever seems to do a good job of it.

Proven 8y ago

It's Chilly inside and it's chilly outside

eudora 8y ago

Is there any work being done to make Bitcoin not consume all that energy? It's hard to support when it's so wasteful of a critical resource. Are they trying to go proof of stake?

bogomipz 8y ago
I'm not familiar with "proof of stake", how does that make mining less wasteful in terms of resources?
- cdiddy2 8y ago
  Its doesn't have any mining at all. You put your coins in a smart contract that allows you to get randomly selected to create blocks from time to time, if you do something wrong then some of your coins are taken from you, if you do everything right you get a portion of the fees and/or a bit of inflation. There are lots of slightly different variants of it though
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    Interesting. Is there a practical reason limiting its' adoption?
    - cdiddy2 8y ago
      It doesnt have the same history of security that proof of work has so its just newer and hard to get the incentives correct to create a secure network. Ethereum is working on moving to it and some others as well.
      - bogomipz 8y ago
        Thanks. I just found the following article about "proof of stake" in case anyone else is: interested: https://hackernoon.com/what-is-proof-of-stake-8e0433018256 https://hackernoon.com/what-is-proof-of-stake-8e0433018256
8y ago

plankers 8y ago

Love watching people cry about bitcoin miners increasing the overall efficacy of electricity use. If you didn't want people moving in and using your cheap electricity, you shouldn't have made it so cheap! Price stabilization in action.

eli 8y ago
If you walked into Starbucks every day and took most of the sugar packets so that they're aren't enough for all the other customers, proclaiming "they should've charged $0.10 each!" when caught would probably not earn you much sympathy from the regular customers.
- plankers 8y ago
  That would be a good analogy if there were government price controls on sugar packets at Starbucks. Or if electricity was free. As it stands, it's a pretty poor analogy.

tjpaudio 8y ago

I fully understand this reaction. Crypo is delivering on none of it's promises and leaving an ugly mark on the production side. Transactions are way too slow for retail, decentralization is a joke because the largest mining pools are manipulating the supply with less transparency than national currencies, the value is too volatile to entice people to use it for anything other than speculation, and it is literally the most environmentally destructive modern technology at the moment. If miners moved into my town you bet my ass I would be at town hall telling them to fuck off.

nil_pointer 8y ago
If your area has cheap electricity, chances are miners are already there.