Bitcoin.com reports various local governments imposing temporary bans on the mining of cryptocurrency. Back in March, the website carried news of the Chelan County Power Utility District (PUD) of north-central Washington effecting a moratorium on crypto mining on account of the intensity of power consumption of the activity. The region’s PUD commissioners exercised “an emergency moratorium on new high-density load hookups to give staff time to develop a plan for dealing with the demand for electricity from digital currency miners.”
Other jurisdictions following suit
The problem of overconsumption of electric power seems to be all over in areas where there are a lot of miners. On Saturday, Bitcoin.com again ran a story of another town imposing a moratorium on crypto mining. According to a publication conveyed by the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) of Common Council of the city of Salamanca, the temporary ban is intended to provide “the opportunity to consider zoning and land use laws and municipal electric department regulations before commercial cryptocurrency mining operations result in [an] irreversible change to the character and direction of the city.” However, in some other cities, the PUD commissioners have resorted to doubling of the bills of the cryptocurrency miners instead of settling for moratoria.
Protecting households and other utility customers
Most of the cities and towns that have settled for moratoria have cited the welfare of households and other utility customers as the main reason as to the consideration of the actions. They have argued that the high consumption of electricity by the crypto miners has pushed the cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity through the roof, and that it has affected the bills that innocent households have received.
Outrage and disgust
According to Coindesk, the miners have not taken the news lightly. There are reports of confrontations between angry miners and police in some regions; while others have just expressed their disgust at the high rates they are being charged. Meanwhile, areas like rural Washington have stopped receiving applications for new licenses by crypto mining farms, citing the high electricity demand.
The various jurisdictions have defended the imposition of the moratoria, citing the lack of proper laws that should govern the industry. “The moratorium will allows us time to come up with proper regulation measures to manage this situation,” one council member has been quoted commenting on the development.