Salamanca Decides to Impose a Moratorium on Crypto Mining

Crypto mining has been considered a necessary evil for the blockchain world. Powerful computers were used in order to ensure that transactions are processed. In fact, this is a serious business today despite the fact that Bitcoin’s price is not doing so well. You have a company like Bitmain that has outperformed itself from last year. The company has made $2 billion in the first quarter of the year.

The downside though is the energy-intensive nature of the activity. For a lot of countries, this can be an issue for environmental reasons. In fact, there are those reports saying that Bitcoin mining energy requirement worldwide is enough to power an entire country.

And because of this, regulators actually have different approaches to the miners. For instance, you have China that has banned crypto mining activities. This time, the city of Salamanca in New York has reportedly released a moratorium in the city’s mining operations. The regulators from the Salamanca hopes that this could stop miners from “using up all the residents” power. The regulators are concerned about the increase on the utility bills of their residents.

The Common Council of the city of Salamanca voted unanimously and approved Local Law No. 2 for 2018. This law imposes “a moratorium on commercial cryptocurrency mining operations in the city” according to the Salamanca Press.

What this means is that it will stop the applications, proceedings, and issuance of permits to crypto miners. In addition to stopping the miners from using the energy meant for residents, it is also an opportunity to consider preventing the crypto miners from causing an irreversible change to the character as well as the direction which city officials want to take for their city. There will be a public hearing on September 12 regarding the law.

No Rules Yet

If you are a crypto miner operating in Salamanca, according to council member Timothy Flanigan, he explained that the Board of Public Utilities still “does not yet have all the rules and regulations in place to properly deal with cryptocurrency operations”.

There are also similar measures that were already introduced by other cities in the US. Washington State’s Chelan County in March already launched a moratorium on “high-density load hookups”. And because of this, it gave regulators time needed to plan how to deal with the industry. And also, Plattsburgh, New York is also a similar story as they implemented a law prohibiting mining operations.

And also, Massena which is found in upstate New York decided to charge a higher rate for energy use. This type of approach has been done by Quebec as well. Instead of stopping crypto miners from operating in their territory, a different rate has been given to cryptocurrency miners instead.

Finding The Best Location for Mining

The ideal place to set up a crypto mining operation is in a place that has cold temperatures and affordable electricity. Among the best places to operate include China and Canada. Unfortunately, China has been known for taking serious steps against crypto-related activities. And for this reason, there are those that have flocked towards Quebec.