20 sats \ 0 replies \ @tom 5 Jun 2022 freebie \ on: New York just passed a bill cracking down on bitcoin mining — here's everything that's in it bitcoin
Just to offer a counter-point here, the article shared below is misleading and factually inaccurate. The bill bans issuance of new air permits for fossil fuel-fired power plants that are providing electricity directly (eg, not through the grid) to PoW mining operations. This bill passed because short-sighted investors started firing up shuttered power plants in communities that didn't want those plants reactivated. Local people (who mostly probably had no understanding of Bitcoin, etc) got angry; their elected officials heard them; the timing coincided with a national and global anti-crypto backlash (that is obviously often ill-informed and in bad faith); and now Gov. Hochul is likely to sign this bill into law. PoW mining remains perfectly legal in NYS, but if the bill is signed, it will no longer be possible to have a captive fossil fuel-fired power plant to provide electricity to your PoW mining operation. These miners will now have to source electricity from the grid, or – as Soluna and other enable – from renewable sources. The hysteria and misinformation from the crypto lobby is a bad look, and those of us who would like to see crypto 1) thrive in NYS and 2) rapidly shift to dependence on 100% renewable electricity would probably be better served by trying to understand what actually happened here and by actually reading the bill language which has been systematically misrepresented in press coverage.