Bitcoin is a “combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster,” a top central-banking official recently cautioned, referring to the large amount of electricity needed to create bitcoin.
You don’t have to tell that to the residents in Wenatchee, Washington, where a bitcoin invasion is under way. Why? Because the electricity is cheap.
“Home to hydroelectric dams that harness the flow of the Columbia River, north central Washington has some of the cheapest power in the U.S. That has made the largely rural area best known for its apple orchards a magnet for bitcoin miners, who use powerful specialized computers to generate new units of cryptocurrencies—a process that requires vast amounts of electricity to run and cool thousands of machines,” reports the WSJ.
How much power does a cryptocurrency mining operation require?
“Mining operations can squeeze into small spaces. Shoebox-size computer servers that suck up as much power as roughly 1,000 homes can be packed into a 25-by-25-foot room. Miners have popped up in unexpected places in the area: an old laundromat, a former fruit-packing warehouse, apartments, and even free-standing cargo containers,” according to the WSJ.
Sounds like a waste of utility customers’ money to me.