> OK, but those exact same places could power servers instead of miners, taking a load off of wherever the servers are currently hosted. They don't have good i

> OK, but those exact same places could power servers instead of miners, taking a load off of wherever the servers are currently hosted. They don't have good internet. Which I wrote earlier. Crypto mining don't need good internet, it barely needs any good internet speed and barely needs decent latency - by design (blockchains allow anything from 2 seconds - 2000 milliseconds - to 10 minutes - 600000 milliseconds - for the majority of miners on the whole planet to reach the same state together, under the assumption that some nodes will have slow data and low latency. So a 500-900ms latency connection in the middle of nowhere is quite fine, not optimal but good enough for consistent average earnings). Other data heavy computational uses require the opposite of that, these remote sites are not going to get the plumbing for good internet or prioritize it. The main issue is that they won't prioritize it because they aren't interested in it, they are technophobic oil guys that are slowly being convinced by crypto investors to solve their pollution problem. The crypto people don't need anything except a little space. The issue with imagining that everyone else could do it, is that everyone else doesn't need to do it. A data center can set up in the middle of the desert along any fiber line like they already do. Go ahead and tell them "hey instead of using this readily available property can you go set up at the oil refinery after making an unnecessary partnership with that unrelated business because I don't like that crypto people are doing it, you also need to invest in laying some pipes out there" if you really think that is practical or necessary, be my guest.