Tuesday, June 5, 2018

County In Montana Looks At Limiting Bitcoin Mining

Concerned about the amount of energy being consumed, and noise being generated by a local Bitcoin mining startup, commissioners in Missoula County, Montana are looking at emergency interim zoning to limit crytocurrency operations, according to a report from the Missoulian. The report says two commercial-scale cryptocurrency mining facilities are currently located in the county. Bitcoin--or more accurately, blockchain, the technology underlying the cryptocurrency--is notorious for its energy use, because it is designed so that it can only be "created" through using computer processors to solve increasingly complex mathematical operations--something which has the effect of massive power usage. A recent report said that Bitcoin mining could consume as much electricity as the country of Denmark by 2020.