N.Y. town bans cryptocurrency mining

A small lakeside town in upstate New York is fed up with bitcoin miners using up so much of its low-cost electricity.

Plattsburgh, whose residents are a quick jaunt from the Canadian border, has put an 18-month moratorium on cryptocurrency mining to preserve natural resources, the health of its residents, and the "character and direction" of the city.

For a year and a half, the almost 20,000-resident city will not consider new applications for commercial cryptocurrency mining. Anyone breaking the rules will owe Plattsburgh up to $1,000 for each day they violate the moratorium.

Mining, a process by which individuals or groups get paid in new bitcoins to run complex mathematical equations on high-powered computers in order to confirm the validity of transactions, has drawn scrutiny from environmentalists who say it's sucking up too much electricity. Some have estimated that bitcoin miners will use more power than electric cars in the near term.

Business on 03/17/2018

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