Topic: New York's push to ban crypto mining (Read 380 times)

I heard of the bill that bans crypto mining that uses coal as a source of energy, but that was not a full mining ban because as long as the energy is eco-friendly, mining was allowed. It still wasn't fair to cryptos, of course, pushing crypto mining to be particularly eco-friendly while other businesses that require electricity did not get the same restriction regarding the source of electricity, but it wasn't a total mining ban nevertheless. Now I'm a bit confused it this bad on PoW the same ban or something different that doesn't allow PoW regardless of the source of energy.

As far as I know, New York is a bitcoin-friendly city and they do allow the bitcoin payments there so can easily buy and sell products and pay the money with bitcoin also there are many bitcoin ATMs in New York you can use, so they are not planning to ban bitcoin in their city. But since bitcoin mining is PoW and this requires some power and especially the electric power they have plans to ban bitcoin mining, making this decision especially when we are getting to the summer is not surprising because we will see more power consumption and they are worried about it.

Since as of last year NY had just under 20% of the total US mining and was growing:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/09/war-to-attract-bitcoin-miners-pits-texas-against-new-york-kentucky.html

There had to come a snag. And that snag was people pushing the boundaries. Starting mining with an old coal fired generator really annoyed some people:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/19/cryptocurrency-mining-blossoms-in-upstate-new-york-but-it-hasnt-been-well-received-00033354

As I posted elsewhere, NY is still throwing a lot of grants at crypro businesses and pushing for more but to meet certain green goals forcing them to use renewables / green power to mine was only a matter of time. Since the larger mines are all hydro anyway and already announced plans to keep growing / building I don't see it as a big deal. Except to make headlines.

-Dave

They have been putting forward all these excuses from a long time and we all know that this energy consumption is big issue for them always ignoring the fact how much energy other sectors use for monetary aspects.The similar bills was passed in EU to ban POW based coins but here it's related to mining only and like the first bill if this is also signed then miners will have to reallocate spreading hash power to new places.The mining will be affected for some time but after some time it will be same as China matters now but it couldn't happen everywhere as it will distrub the network.This is not wise move and they will regret later on.

The difference is that during the booze deal, there weren't many places in the country that you could sell it, if I am not wrong it was a federal move right? This one is New York related only. Plus, the amount of people who use booze, and have absolutely no alternatives is out there and known, whereas if you do not use crypto at all then you could go with fiat and if you want to invest then there are stocks and precious metal like gold and silver. All in all, they are not the same thing and New York would win that argument.

However, when other states allow such things, New York not allowing people to do it would be a freedom blocking thing, and the USA is obsessed with "freedom" more than anything else.

To put it in another context, 13 years is "short" for "a prohibition" of something like alcohol. Because compare it with Marijuana "prohibition", how long has it been?

Bitcoin being a technological development that can weaken political strongholds, I believe the government can take their "prohibition" for as long as possible.


It's possible that they only truly want proper regulation, but that's still an optimistic viewpoint. I don't trust them. They don't want Bitcoin, and probably wished it never existed.

Actually, does anything good come from this state nowadays? This is the perfect concept of the progressist paradise on practice: abusive behavior from authorities against those who they can't control or have no influence over, no respect for privacy and individuals' decisions, censorship as a measure to solve what they consider issues.
It's not the end of the world, though. There are many other places where people can mine bitcoins, including in US. And without any doubts, much better places thinking on the sustainability and profitability of the business. I think people need to get closer to other people who have similar ideas and world views for an harmonic life. And situations like this help people searching for places where they could belong and be respected, while living accordingly to their convictions and goals.

i think you mean.. what if the prohibition is not as short as the bitlicence (literally hours with pre planned deadline)

where they done a scheme where they banned exchanging in new york after X date.. but months prior told businesses to get prepared and apply for a licence which became active hours after the date.. thus it felt like (for those businesses that applied for licence) as if there was no ban, no delay of service.

i do not see this as being that short(hours) .. but i also do not see this as being as long (over decade) as the 'prohibition' of 1920-1933

i see this as a upto 2 year delay/halt.. with a looming 'threat' where mining is could be permanently banned will be made.. after the 2 year period is up..
but within the two year "delay/halt" they will introduce licences for mining companies that can prove the source of their power is renewable to be active by the end of the 2 year delay/halt period(or sooner).. giving the government upto 2 years to set up the licence application department and regulations departments to over see mining operations.
(it takes time to train new staff in new tech, so dont expect licences being offered in the next few months)

after all if it was just a temporary thing. where 'open/unlicenced uncontrolled mining was allowed after 2 years. mining farms wont care about wanting to legitimise themselves to comply with any temporary delay/halt

..
NY state(local government) used to entice companies in via tax breaks and grants.. this way instead of giving real money away or avoid taking money away from treasury.. they can invent a new 'product'(licence) that comes at a huge fee when they dont want the business as much. and offer discounts/free licences when they want the business.. that way they can control how much mining comes into NY using up the renewable excess capacity, further controlling how much mining happens in NY

(.. all this is my opinion based on what a savvi business man would do if he was a politician)


this is just about NY.. a state that doesnt even tickle the needle on the scales of how much hashpower is distributed world wide

NY is not a big deal. but. that said. if all U.S states followed suit and copied. then that could affect 30% of the network TEMPORARILY.
and just like china. and then russia.. well. temporary hashpower drop. and then recovery within 6 months..
yep we are at higher hashrate now even though mining was banned in china september (9 months ago)
and china was a bigger land mass, bigger population and far bigger mining hashrate source than silly little NY state

Force rules upon the miners that if a transaction came from "nefarious" sources, miners in the state should not include them in their blocks. That's censorship at the protocol level that should never ever be accepted by the community. There is simply no trade-off acceptable.

Sad news coming from New York, I hope the bill is not going to pass. In Europe they tried the same thing and luckily didn't get majority for it. What's going on lately with politicians trying to ban crypto mining? Is this some general push from the financial service lobby industry? I can't believe all the politicians decided for themselves to go so strongly against cryptos now. Crypto currencies became so popular in the last 2 years that there is a big public support for them. Hopefully no new country will get a majority to ban crypto mining. Also the energy inefficiency of crypto mining is always given as argument for the ban, which is really one sided. If politicians want to do something for the environment, why not go for other industries? There are industrial companies which are much worse for the environment than crypto mining. It feels a bit like a witch hunt.

Thus regulating the BTC miners which "they" might have some rules in the end how and who are the people allowed to mine BTC. This is really not making the cryptocurrency as a whole a decentralized system. Interesting things might happen in the near future as to who's running this show.

But we shall see what other countries have to possibly dodge this regulation like El Salvador or Russia.

Good point, but what if "the prohibition" isn't as short as 1900's alcohol prohibition? What if they, and many others like "they", make it a long "mining prohibition" as a strategy to weaken the network/protocol/technology that could weaken them?

The cartelization, and specialization of mining which brought massive hashing power, making the network robust, is also an attack vector.

While in NY, they're pushing to ban mining.

On the other state like Texas, I've just seen a video about that state that it's going to be like a haven for the bitcoin miners. Just as seen on the news: Mawson to Develop New Bitcoin Mining Site in Texas

I guess NY will still need to go through a lot of discussions over this proposed ban.

here is another perspective..

lets use the scenario of the 2014 bit licence and also the 1900's alcohol prohibition..

if something is previously open and has no laws. a government cant just offer licences/permits to it.. they first need to outlaw/ban/prohibit it. .. to then bring it into their purview (jurisdiction) to then set terms of use in their licence/permits which hey can later sell/offer.

i dont see this as a "permanent ban" scenario.. i see this as phase one of establishing a permit/licencing scheme

This is the argument they always use to counter things they don't like, or maybe it's because they can't fill their mining tax pockets well, I don't know how much energy is used for bitcoin mining in New York? But I am sure that it is a very small percentage that does not compare to the heat emissions caused by cars or factories located in New York, in any case, I do not think that this decision will have any negative impact on Bitcoin mining.

Just like that, after a warm welcome, they are now giving the miners some headache about this kind of regulation and some miners out there cannot overhaul their system right now because of the current price of bitcoins in the market. Looks like these critics always looking for the flaw to remove all the miners in their place and they are not joking about it since they have some power to propose regulations regarding their claim.

Of course this has never been about global warming. This has always been against Bitcoin itself. And the ultimate motive has probably always been to try stopping Bitcoin altogether.

It is becoming more obvious now. Apparently, it is not enough to ban miners using nonrenewable energy because many of them might still continue their operation after shifting to the use of green energy. This is obviously isn't good for them who are pursuing no less than the death of Bitcoin. And so they have to push even further to the ban on PoW.

However members of the crypto community expressed their disapproval via social media.
Even via his Twitter thread, Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at the Blockchain Association, explained that the move would not “reduce carbon emissions at all.” According to Chervinsky, the mining ban would only push miners away from New York to build in other areas where the country is. have no effect on them.

Even US senator candidate Bruce Fenton also opposed the move. He said in a tweet that the government does not have the right to determine the specific software that people run. He noted that “code is speech,” implying that the ban is a move against free speech.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin also agrees with Fenton.
As he said in his twitter which you can see below.

and many more opposed NY move about the steps being taken. Sourch

For a country like this then i dont see that there would be much objections in regarding on banning crypto mining.If majority of them would be agreeing on such bill then it would be take effectively in a short span of time.
Honestly these are just purely excuses on having that green electricity or something that connects out green or something without even tending to solve out other existing problems that had been existing for millenias.
This do really shows out obviously that they arent tending to accept it anytime soon no matter what.

Well, if only the purpose of this bill is to promote green electricity, then likely it gain some support. But if the purpose of totally banning Bitcoin is for the sake of their personal interest and to stop crypto in their country, they are taking some opportunities from these people (miners).

Anyway, it was just a proposal - it will take more time to get approval from the higher level. Well, so many times to hear this kind of attempt but they fail to stop it. I believe there is another option about this rather than banning crypto mining.

Isn't the price of electricity high in the NY area? For instance in 2020 1kWh costed almost 15c in NY, while only 8c in Idaho, 7.6 in Oklahoma and 7.5 in Louisiana. There are plenty of cheaper places to mine so how much of an impact on the NY energy grid is that going to be? If anyone decided to mine at 2x the rate in other states, it had to be a small operation, especially that NY had strict laws regarding bitcoin businesses for years. When they passed that famous bitcoin bill many companies moved out of the state. It seems they've been working against bitcoin for a long time and "green energy" is just a cover up.

Mining getting banned will make the miners look for an alternate space. Among the cities of USA, New York stands 6th in terms of electricity consumption. Maybe thats the reason for the ban of cryptocurrency mining. Now what will be the situation of registered miners who have been doing it in large scale. Nowadays most of the countries want to regulate, but New York making such an immediate action looks like something hidden back in the plan.

I'm wondering if they mention green electricity in the bill specifically. A lot of domestic power firms in the UK offer you green tarrifs on a £5/month additional cost, if the same thing happens over in the US then that might be a way to get around this. If that's an option, the bill probably won't do much.

If it is just Bitcoin mining that is been banned then it means miners in New York will have to shift else where that is more favorable to continue their mining possibly using renewable energy sources for energy generation. Placing a ban on Bitcoin mining will not stop carbon emission. It is well understood that Bitcoin mining consumes enough electricity capable of powering countries due to it's high computational power but instead of a ban why not provide a better alternative for their power consumption

It seems that New York is sending somewhat conflicting messages, but I guess we should all be behind attempts to make mining more environmentally friendly. I just wonder if this is pushing the problem around and not really solving anything, if Bitcoin miners were to take large amounts of "green energy" while all remaining users need to be topped up with coal, oil or other dirty energy then you're just building an illusion. As always it is typical politician behavior as they try to grab friendly headlines without understanding the complexities surrounding wider energy usage. Out of all the places which could effectively produce renewable energy, New York has to be one of the most expensive so people will simply take all of their miners elsewhere instead of trying anything there.

Bitcoin is not banned, only bitcoin mining will be banned, not also only bitcoin mining, any coin mining using PoW will be banned if the governor sign the bill.

It won't affect bitcoin at all but affect bitcoin miners in New York, I expect the miners to move to another state in US to mine.

These miners can always find a friendly state that will allow bitcoin mining. On another note, this will also push miners to utilize green energy as much as possible. In the long run, it is also a beneficial move for them. It may incur high expenditures at the beginning, but later on, it will be free or with minimal maintenance only. So if they have long-term plans in the crypto mining business, they can always invest with their green source of energy and reap the rewards later on.

Lol! I see a bigger conspiracy behind all these and most probably funded by some wall street bankers. Otherwise, I don't see a sensible reason for a complete ban on bitcoin mining.

If a mining company can source their energy from a completely green and renewable resource, then what's the point? This is non sense!

I believe, NY is not a good area to setup a mining facility considering the land and property price. It's better to move to states like Texas where the miners can get hectors of lands at the same price of a one bedroom apartment.

I don't think there's much wiggle room to oppose the bill if the energy consumption issue is too large over there.

I feel as though the only way to offset the continuous bouncing miners have to make as a result of being kicked out frequently is if new and better ASIC miners are invented.

Then, difficulty and BTC price will go up together, and the BTC user doesn't feel a monetary loss based on events like these.

It could be that one day that miners are concentrated in a handful of countries, with super fast futuristic miners (the *number* of mining entities themselves does not change much, of course).

Once again, the problem of bitcoin mining, warming the earth and polluting the environment, is mentioned again. Nothing too new here and as before bitcoin will not have any loss with this announcement. There will always be bitcoin haters looking to get rid of bitcoin altogether, when someone bans bitcoin, it becomes an opportunity for others to own bitcoin. Bitcoin mining ban will be a disadvantage for people living in New York but I guess it will not affect bitcoin.

It's only the mining.


It's bad because the underlying "reason" is the "Bitcoin uses dirty energy" (proven fake) narrative and, since politics defy logic, this sets up a dangerous precedent.


I guess that the problem is not some small home miners, it's the mining businesses. And they cannot just hide, you know... and relocating is not cheap. But that's the best solution, I guess.


It was only the mining (this time). And NY has a history of being overly harsh against Bitcoin. Pretty stupid move if you ask me, but they may think that with this crap they somehow protect Wall Street or ... I don't know what are they thinking...

Are they banning only Bitcoin mining or whole Bitcoins?
As if only Bitcoin mining is banned, then it won’t be a big issue I guess.
They can secretly mine and can sell their Bitcoins in the exchanges. The exchanges many times doesn’t ask the source of Bitcoins right?
If they have banned the Bitcoins, then it might become a serious issue for the New York’s people.
Moreover I know the people there are really smart. If they ban Bitcoins , then people will use P2P deals to buy sell the Bitcoins.
This is the power of Bitcoins.

I think it's pretty simple when it comes to Bitcoin mining which is always banned because of the energy impact it generates. A simple example: the greenhouse effect of buildings in New York does not have a big impact on the environment? They banned it because they did not have access to control the mining process and the overall results. Due to the fact that when heavy mining is in the gold, coal, Nickel, Gas, and Oil mining sectors, it is easy to legalize. Surely you know the reason? well, they have a percentage of the tax that has been set for the elite of the council and for sure the governor in the region has had a separate share of the income earned.

Not long but some weeks ago, a bill was proposed to ban bitcoin miners that are not using green energy:

New York's push to ban crypto mining triggers response from community

The bill was voted for and signed by the house of assembly and them by the Senate and was passed to the governor to sign, it was signed by the governor and became a law.


But now, New York is planning to finally ban bitcoin and other crypto mining that are using proof of work (PoW):

New York's push to ban crypto mining triggers response from community


It is not now about global warming, it is now about energy consumption which will know will be always proposed by PoW critics.