Bitcoin Miners Will See 29% Rate Hike On Hydroelectric Power In Washington (decrypt.co) 119
A 29% rate hike for hydroelectric power in Chelan County, created specifically for cryptocurrency miners, went into effect on June 1. Decrypt reports: The miners used to pay a lower, high-density load rate for their electricity. Now they'll pay a newly-created cryptocurrency rate, known as Rate 36. Washington state accounted for about two-thirds of all hydroelectric power generated in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration. The state's Grand Coulee Dam, located on the Columbia River in Grant and Okanogan counties, powers a 6,809-megawatt. The cheap and renewable hydropower has made Washington state a popular destination for Bitcoin miners too. Washington state accounted for 4% of the total U.S. hashrate in December, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. [...]
KPQ also reported that nearby Douglas County has stopped allowing new Bitcoin miners to set up operations there because they already consume 25% of the county's available energy. Still, the Chelan County rate hike won't ban crypto miners. For companies that have made substantial investments in their mining facilities, officials have approved transition plans to gradually increase energy rates over the next two years. "We need to have some sort of transition. That's important for business," PUD Commissioner Ann Congdon told the Wenatchee World on Tuesday. "I understand how businesses need that in order to plan."
Malachi Salcido, CEO of Salcido Enterprises, told the local news outlet that the new rate will force him to reconfigure his three Chelan County crypto mining facilities into data farms. He has four other crypto mining facilities, two in Douglas County and two in Grant County. Under the new pricing plan, Salcido can keep his Chelan facility on the lower, high-density energy rate if he processes data instead of mining crypto. The data processing uses the same amount of power as crypto mining, he told the Wenatchee World. "Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
KPQ also reported that nearby Douglas County has stopped allowing new Bitcoin miners to set up operations there because they already consume 25% of the county's available energy. Still, the Chelan County rate hike won't ban crypto miners. For companies that have made substantial investments in their mining facilities, officials have approved transition plans to gradually increase energy rates over the next two years. "We need to have some sort of transition. That's important for business," PUD Commissioner Ann Congdon told the Wenatchee World on Tuesday. "I understand how businesses need that in order to plan."
Malachi Salcido, CEO of Salcido Enterprises, told the local news outlet that the new rate will force him to reconfigure his three Chelan County crypto mining facilities into data farms. He has four other crypto mining facilities, two in Douglas County and two in Grant County. Under the new pricing plan, Salcido can keep his Chelan facility on the lower, high-density energy rate if he processes data instead of mining crypto. The data processing uses the same amount of power as crypto mining, he told the Wenatchee World. "Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
Do you really want to be in the business of regula (Score:5, Insightful)
"Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
Yes, when you are wasting massive amounts of power.
The alternative would be that the price pr. kWh will go up for everyone until it is no longer viable to run crypto farms in the area. Your farming does not benefit anyone except yourself. It is a lights out operation with no benefits to the community and minimal jobs.
GTFO.
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Yes, when you are wasting massive amounts of power.
We really need a special bitcoin tax.
(unless you believe they are declaring all that income and paying tax on it...)
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that tax should be 200% of revenue. Yes pay all of your ill-gotten gains back to the government, and pay extra for the stupidity of wasting power on nothing at a time when the world is burning.
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Tax cheats would just keep being tax cheats. But hey, may as well punish people for following the law, hmm?
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As much as I hate cryptocurrency. and all the wasted electricity from it. cryptocurrencies are NOT currencies, they are digital property with speculative value. Cryptocurrency is no different from a local, private token functioning in lieu of a legal currency. Of course that doesn't stop greedy governments [irs.gov] from sticking their grubby little fingers into every possible piece of the pie declaring them as income even though they do not have legal tender status in the U.S.
If they expect me to pay tax on say an
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BTW, net earnings is the quantifiable amounts after expenses; income is simply the inbound revenue stream. IF managed properly, then your "hobby" expenses (as videogaming is for most persons) would have been tax deductible (prior to revisions to the tax code). Same for crypto mining. Except
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The US government did not create cryptocurrency. They are using duress and intimidation to try to tax something that doesn't belong to them.
No, they are using duress and intimidation to take something that does belong to them.
Put a better way, a portion of your money belongs to the public. Like it or not, this is legal.
When your wife divorces you for being a mouth-breather, a portion of your marital assets will belong to her. Duress and intimidation will be used to enforce that you give her what is hers. It's not stealing. It's law enforcement. You are beholden to the law.
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Cryptocurrency is not legal tender.
Marriage is a contract. When you terminate that contract the common law terms states that half of assets shall be split up.
I have ZERO contracts with the government for cryptocurrency.
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Cryptocurrency is not legal tender.
Irrelevant. Income is taxed, not legal tender.
Marriage is a contract. When you terminate that contract the common law terms states that half of assets shall be split up.
Contract aspect is irrelevant. ;)
In a standard contract, the contract stipulates what happens. In marriage, state+/common law dictates what happens.
Not married, I see
I have ZERO contracts with the government for cryptocurrency.
Also not relevant. Taxation does not rely on contract law.
Seriously, you've got some fucking quacky ideas about how government works.
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"Marriage is a contract. When you terminate that contract the common law terms states that half of assets shall be split up."
Tell me you've never been married without telling me directly that you've never been married. *kisses the fat star ruby on his ring finger*
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There is a name for taking something that doesn't belong to you:
Theft
Yep.
eg. If you don't pay taxes then go outside and drive along a road or across a bridge? Theft.
Go somewhere with street lights at night? Theft.
Use a flush toilet? Theft.
What else have the Romans never done for you?
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For not being a currency, I get paid 10% of my salary in BTC.
I pay for goods in store from my BTC balance using a BTC Visa card.
I earn interest on BTC in BTC.
Equivalent value of BTC vs USD has increased over the years, yielding a clearly taxable gain in value.
Its' a taxable currency.
If not currency, it's a taxable property. All property sales are subject to tax as well, taking into account rise in value vs cost basis.
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Is it a fixed 10% (as measured in USD) of your salary?
So a varying amount of BTC each pay period depending on the BTC exchange rate at that time?
Or is it a fixed amount of BTC per pay period or year which when the arrangement was created was worth 10% of your salary?
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:5, Informative)
"Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said. Yes, when you are wasting massive amounts of power. The alternative would be that the price pr. kWh will go up for everyone until it is no longer viable to run crypto farms in the area. Your farming does not benefit anyone except yourself. It is a lights out operation with no benefits to the community and minimal jobs.
GTFO.
In addition, differing rates for differing industries is not unusual but the norm.
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitcoin is not only a waste of power, sucking up valuable resources that could be used to produce something worthwhile, it's also a vast waste of financial capital, sucking up vast amounts of capital that could be used to invest in companies and build factories or service based industries.
Any of these would have more value for society as a whole than it being locked up in bitcoin or other crypto, which by itself produces nothing. It's worse than investing in gold for economic growth, because at the end of the day if you invest in gold, although it tends to take capital out of circulation, gold does actually have some industrial uses.
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If you invest in Bitcoin, your money doesn't disappear, you just hand it to someone else. In fact, it gives you an asset that you can borrow against, which (if you do) increases the money supply. Same thing with gold.
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Same thing used to be true with tulip bulbs. ;-)
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In the long run, scarcity is the name of the game
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:5, Interesting)
It turns out it's a lot easier to grow new tulip bulbs and print new money than it is to 'mine' for new cryptos and new gold.
In the long run, scarcity is the name of the game
No, in the long run, desirability is the name of the game. Just like people who bought NFTs for the purpose of speculation have seen their value dive overnight because the market moved on* to a different batch of NFTs, people who bought tulip bulbs because they were valuable one day saw their value dive overnight because some different fancy tulip no one had seen before showed up on the market and devalued all the other ones.
* The market of course doesn't just move on. Malicious actors deliberately manipulate desirability in order to cause these shifts. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they don't... But they manufacture it by making high-value trades between colluding parties where the only thing actually ventured is transaction fees, so the risk is relatively low.
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Scarcity v Desirability
How about we meet in the middle and agree on 'supply and demand' :-)
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You know what's really scarce? Poop pellets from Babe Ruth. And yet despite the extreme scarcity the price is also extremely low.
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Have you ever bred tulips? There's lots of dirt and watering and time involved.
You can download the bitcoin or etherium code, mint your own genesis block(s) and mine as much cryptocurrency as you want in an hour or so without ever having to put on pants.
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Sure, but there's a lot of electricity involved. Anyone who can find a place to grow a flower can raise a tulip, but mining bitcoins profitably requires expensive equipment and big power bills.
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If you start your own they're very nearly free to mine. For some of the systems it is literally free for whoever is in charge to make as much as they want.
It's extremely easy to print new cryptocurrency. It's only difficult to do for the specific blockchains where someone else has already mined all the easy stuff.
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What would be nice is, if we had to have a cryptocurrency, to write a cryptocurrency based on proof of work, but would do protein folding or SETI At Home. That way, all that CPU work would be doing something beneficial for humanity.
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There are several of those. They're not popular.
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That's true, but if you buy your Bitcoin from a miner, much of the value the money represents has disappeared in the form of heat dissipated from their equipment.
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Well, it's not the heat that's the value. The value of the slivers of bitcoin that can get mined is lower than the normal consumer rate for electricity. Thus they want to get below market rate at all times to have any sort of profit margin.
As for heat, mining crypto is the dumbest possible way to get heat. Get a damn toaster oven and you'll generate more heat per kilowatt at a lower operating price. Anything that is made that uses electricity, has some waste heat. It's normally so low that no one accoun
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Yes, buying Bitcoin means that you are wasting actual limited goods like energy and chip factory output. This makes us all poorer. But not financially poorer, as in we have fewer dollars or whichever currency -- but actually poorer, as in we can't get as much useful stuff with those dollars.
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Gold is mostly an investment that will keep its value with inflation.
A Gold coin in 1822 can buy you a fancy suite,
A Gold coin in 2022 can still buy you a fancy suite.
You really don't invest in Gold, you mostly just Save your value with gold.
However BItcoin has high variance in price and wages. 10 years ago, pizza bought with would be worth getting a Pizza Company today. Then tomorrow it might be worth half as much.
The thing though is if you buy gold, then you put money into circulation. However if you mi
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Crazy how me not lending my money to others for their own greedy uses is somehow pivoted as not good for society.
My savings are mine and if I want to store them in ways that don't benefit society that is literally my prerogative.
Therefore I have holdings in bitcoin, all nice and neatly locked up from society's greedy belief that it gets to use it while I'm *waiting*.
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:4, Insightful)
Oddly enough, it isn't. If banks were unable to use depositor money for loans to others, most transactions would never get done. Need a loan for a car? Sorry, can't do that without using someone else's money. Need a loan for a house? Same thing.
If money wasn't loaned out, everyone would need to have cash on hand to buy anything. Think of how many people could never by a car or house. And that's just people. Government at all levels runs on debt. Without the ability to use other people's money, the entire system would grind to a halt.
If that is your end game, then say it. Otherwise, you're an idiot who wastes resources doing nothing productive or useful.
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the power grid is already a highly regulated industry. Because we all need electrical power, and such a demand would normally mean Electric Power would be excessively expensive, as well not be as widely available (the expense of the last mile deployment). The electrical grid is regulated as well many aspects are compensated with our taxes to make sure the resource is available to the general public.
However, it is a resource with limitations, and is expensive to expand. Bitcoin miners use a lot of power, which puts a strain on grid, as well it doesn't really provide much benefit to the society, Today's bitcoins are a far cry from the idealistic intent from its creation, where they are mostly collected and stored for value, vs used for everyday transactions, because you don't want to spend $10 worth of bit coin for a Pizza to have it be worth $10,000 in a few years. But it isn't helping people, improving their lives, or advancing civilization.
Because there is a Sap on our tax supported money, as well our general cost of power for our own homes. Saying that bitcoin mining will need a different rate to use power is not unreasonable. It isn't the government is trying to make the activity illegal, just an insensitive to not use public resources for it.
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:4, Insightful)
In Washington, it's not just "highly regulated" -- the dams and hydro is owned by us, the people living there. Every watt of cheap power that's wasted by the bitcoin miners has to be replaced by expensive fossil-fuel generators.
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Yeah, we need to keep prices low so large office buildings powered so everyone can drive to the office and have water cooler chats and people can use that processing power to play video games.
People like you scream about net neutrality and wanting broadband to be a utility, yet neutrality can't apply when it involves electricity because you think cryptocurrency is evil.
GTFO.
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Well that escalated quickly, didn't even stop at they're criminals or mentally defective, straight to the dehumanization step. Would you propose a "final solution" to the problem with Bitcoiners? Or do you need a "great leap forward" and "cultural revolution" before you can solve this?
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:4, Insightful)
"Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
Good luck finding enough "data" to process.
Anybody else think he's going to be lying^Wcreative about what he's doing?
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Probably going to switch to Chia from Bitcoin.
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So much for net neutrality. Don't come crying...
That's not what they're doing (Score:2)
You're strawmaning. The Straw man is that their regulating server activity instead of business activity. We've been regulating
Re:That's not what they're doing (Score:4, Insightful)
But the electricity is a public service, heavily subsidized for that reason. It comes from natural resources that belong to the residents, and thus needs to be shared. Just like mines, the residents of the state receive benefits even if they're not the actual miners. Assuming of course that the goverment isn't corrupt and cuts down taxes to the mine owners in exchange for kickbacks (which happens a lot, especially if there's also a wink and a nod towards mythical "job creation").
So, the residents paid for the dam, the state granted right of ways for the power transmission lines, the government gave grants to create mines, gave land grants for wind farms or dams, and so forth. So the village well is now owned by the people. If some bozo comes along and takes half the water it's certainly not fair; even worse if the bozo bribes the politicians and police to protect them from the angry villagers. And yet this is essentially what is happening with most cryptomining operations.
Re: Do you really want to be in the business of re (Score:3)
Yes.
Because for better or worse, electric rates are an imperfect attempt at capturing the true cost of energy and capital needed to deliver electricity to customers. Particularly in the PNW region, where our effective "fuel" costs are near zero. You don't want someone to connect to the grid and cause the operators (and as a result other consumers) to pay that other parties share. Dividing loads into classes and calculating rates that cover these costs for each is presently* the approach our utilities regul
Re:Do you really want to be in the business of reg (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because sometimes this cryptominers are getting cheaper electricity than the residents who actually paid to get the dams built with their taxes.
There are places in midwest where the dams were built and the town was granted lower rates for a percentage of the power generated, which was to account for the inconveniences having a dam next door and the loss of land. But then cryptominers moved to take advantage of the low rates, set up shop in warehouses, and sucked up enough electricity that the rates for actual residents skyrocketed because they burned through the town's quota in just a few days. In other words, the cryptominers are leeches and parasites.
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Cry me a river BitCoin Miners.
These companies have to report financial figures, and if it's shown that a company has "no customers" it's clearly not data processing.
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"Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
Yes, when you are wasting massive amounts of power.
The alternative would be that the price pr. kWh will go up for everyone until it is no longer viable to run crypto farms in the area. Your farming does not benefit anyone except yourself. It is a lights out operation with no benefits to the community and minimal jobs.
GTFO.
Erm... this.
If you're not paying a usage charge I.E. per KW, then yes, the larger community has a right to restrict things that end up abusing the system.
Most countries pay for electricity per KWh, so this tends to put a damper on things like Bitcoin mining naturally, it's just not economical to run them any more.
Like anything that gets paid for out of a communal purse (I.E. roads, sanitation, fire/police) rather than per use the system needs to be as fair as possible to all users.
seem reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
The data processing uses the same amount of power as crypto mining, he told the Wenatchee World. "Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
of course they do, you have an entirely wasteful business model that will force prices up for others, governments/cities regulate what businesses can and can't operate on its services all the time and this seems a rather sensible decision, you can still operate but here are the prices to do so.
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There are some situations where more electricity is produced than can be consumed by the local market. For example when winter rainfall or spring snowmelt fills up dams and plants either generate excess power, or dump water through the spillways. Similarly, nuclear plants work best at a relatively constant load which can result in off-peak surpluses.
Until we find a way to store gigawatt-hours of electrical energy, there is a case for letting the bitcoin miners soak up surplus electricity. After all, they c
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Someone should find a way to do power transmission across long distances. Oh, wait...
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> Someone should find a way to do power transmission across long distances. Oh, wait...
You might think this is cute but it's a huge engineering problem with only poor options.
That's why we're not sending solar power from New Mexico to New England. Physics, especially materials science, is a bear.
The RoI is better to sell to miners than you can get after losses. Local governments can then feed to poor, or better yet fund charities to do it.
Most likely is the miners leave for coal and excess revenues dwind
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> Someone should find a way to do power transmission across long distances. Oh, wait...
You might think this is cute but it's a huge engineering problem with only poor options.
Plus a lot of NIMBYs who hate pylons.
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Someone should find a way to do power transmission across long distances. Oh, wait...
Yep. In big countries it's much less efficient than local generation. While in small countries the demand doesn't match the supply.
Re:seem reasonable (Score:5, Interesting)
For example when winter rainfall or spring snowmelt fills up dams and plants either generate excess power, or dump water through the spillways.
Err no they don't. Hydrodams run as a baseload provider. At best what happens is a peaking plant somewhere else spins down. Also the use of a spillway doesn't have anything to do with power generated, but rather specifically managing water level in the dam, incidentally all dams have spillways even those which don't generate any power.
In reality we don't actually have a bunch of excess power. We have enough to soak up momentary spikes in demand at short notice while peaking plants ramp up to provide power, but that's about it precisely because while you pay a fixed price the market itself already runs at a flexible tariff with companies dedicated to providing power when certain price points are met.
If you wanted to use the little excess power reserve for bitcoin mining you'll need the miners to agree to be part of a load shedding system where without any notice what so ever the power will be cut from them, and that they may experience such a thing possibly several times a day, no sane bitcoin miner will agree to those terms.
Otherwise all you're doing is adding a requirement to generate even *more* excess electricity.
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If you wanted to use the little excess power reserve for bitcoin mining you'll need the miners to agree to be part of a load shedding system where without any notice what so ever the power will be cut from them, and that they may experience such a thing possibly several times a day, no sane bitcoin miner will agree to those terms.
Or pay a premium for uninterruptible power; which would raise the costs of mining. One of the consequences of the collapse of BitCoin mining is utilities who added generation will be stuck with significant excess capacity as well as the costs of building and maintaining it. One article I saw said a utility double its grid size du to miners. At their normal growth rate it'd be some 15 years before they needed to add capacity.
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This is why I wish Biden did a defense grant not just for solar panels, but to get battery technologies to market, be it Dr. Goodenough's solid sodium batteries, hemp batteries, or whatnot to improve the pentad of energy density per volume, safety, amount of charge cycles, temperature ranges, and environmental friendliness.
If we had batteries that were 1/10 of propane or gasoline in energy density per unit volume, being able to have large scale battery banks so we could store the surplus power generated at
Re: seem reasonable (Score:2)
If you build seasonal storage you might not need battery storage, if you build battery storage you undermine the economic incentives for seasonal storage. We need seasonal storage absent massive amounts of new nuclear, so best start with that and let the market worry about batteries.
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Sorry, I think I missed something. What is "seasonal storage"?
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I didn't know either, so I looked it up. As it turns out, it's thermal mass storage. It's just a way to store heat energy for later use as heat energy again. It's a terrible, wasteful way to use electricity, because you're generating heat, using it to run a turbine, sending the power someplace else, and generating heat again. It's a very cheap way to store thermal energy, so if you have a lot of that going to waste then it's a good plan, but it's a very stupid way to "store" electricity, especially since yo
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Ok. I suppose, if you use electricity for heating and air conditioning, you can save electricity that way. But, yeah, it's hard to see why having thermal storage would mean you don't need battery storage. Not unless someone invents an amazing way to convert stored heat into electricity. The exception to that would be a situation where electricity is cheap and abundant, but intermittent and thermal storage (plus a Stirling engine generator or something to turn it back into electricity) is far, far cheaper th
Re:seem reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
Until we find a way to store gigawatt-hours of electrical energy, there is a case for letting the bitcoin miners soak up surplus electricity.
No, there is not. Bitcoin makes things worse. There are other uses for that electricity that won't happen if Bitcoin is using it. In fact TFS covers one miner saying he's going to have to convert to productive business if he can't mine. That's outright proof that this is a positive change.
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The data processing uses the same amount of power as crypto mining, he told the Wenatchee World. "Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
of course they do, you have an entirely wasteful business model that will force prices up for others, governments/cities regulate what businesses can and can't operate on its services all the time and this seems a rather sensible decision, you can still operate but here are the prices to do so.
Maybe he should have asked "Do you really want to be in the business of giving price breaks to companies using large amounts of power?" I doubt he complained when he got high density rates.
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The same reasoning as applied by ISPs and telcos to your data. I guess the net neutrality debate is over, thanks for nothing.
Re:seem reasonable (Score:5, Funny)
it won't be pretty.
Speak for yourself, I'm already stockpiling popcorn for the day.
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> I'm already stockpiling popcorn for the day.
Well that's fortunate! [kwqc.com]
=Smidge=
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Of course, the government is breaking the Fourth Amendment finding out who is mining crypto and who is doing other activities like a grow room...
Not really, there is nothing unreasonable about monitoring electrical use and finding out why, he data is freely available to the utility. In the case of TFA, the miners asked for the additional power be provided to them, so it's not like it was some big secret.
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Of course, the government is breaking the Fourth Amendment finding out who is mining crypto
Excuse me?
These people have been getting a special low/subsidized rate for their electricity use. How is it unreasonable to go and check up on what they're using it for?
(And I'm pretty sure the Fourth Amendment applies to personal information, not business information. You're now going to use this as a strawman to ignore the first part of the reply.)
Grow room? (Score:2)
Unlike mining, grow rooms have a tangible benefit for the public. They produce a product for sale and consumption.
wow.... (Score:1)
is that like insurance rate hikes for bad drivers???
Am I the only one offended (Score:5, Funny)
Am I the only one offended by the fact that they call crypto-mining outfits "businesses"? It's like how the mob is in the business of breaking legs, or the pyramid schemes in the business of scamming people...
We are going through an energy crisis, in addition to the severe environmental issues, proof of work cryptocoins should be banned (I won't even address the infantile argument "but they are using hydro").
Re:Am I the only one offended (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. Proof-of-work crypto assets should be made illegal globally. Period.
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Re:Am I the only one offended (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they are consuming insane amounts of electricity to fuel a system based on pure speculation and which does not provide any real value in times of a global energy and climate crisis when we should be conserving and optimising the use of our resources and direct them towards things that matter.
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Why?
See post 1.
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That's a business.
Now, if there's an energy crisis, then let them compete with other energy users on a level playing field. It's nonsensical to charge additional just because you don't like the kind of maths they're doing with that energy. Let them buy the energy at the same rate as other businesses and then they
Re:Am I the only one offended (Score:5, Informative)
Just like hitmen are just offering a service to those who want others dead? We don't call that a business either do we?
Now, if there's an energy crisis, then let them compete with other energy users on a level playing field.
Nope, energy isn't equal in utility for people. As a finite resource not regulating it leads to "tragedy of the commons", you can google that one if you don't understand what that is bad.
It's nonsensical to charge additional just because you don't like the kind of maths they're doing with that energy.
Nope, it's literally normal. You know why it's called Rate 36? Because there's a fuckton of other rates that vary the charge based on what gets done with that energy (not actually 35 others since some have been depreciated over the years, but not far off it either). Electrons are not equal. Someone running a hospital ventilator should not be charged these same as someone running an automated scamming machine.
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..as will wasting energy resources soon be.
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if there's an energy crisis, then let them compete with other energy users on a level playing field
No. Absolutely not.
When we get closer to full utilization, prices are raised to drive demand back down. If you charge everyone the same rates, then this harms residential consumers. That is not in the public interest.
The whole point of government is in theory to look out for the public interest. And when that's not the point, you have to take steps to correct that problem. But what you absolutely do not do is punch citizens in the dick to benefit corporations.
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Am I the only one offended by the fact that they call crypto-mining outfits "businesses"? It's like how the mob is in the business of breaking legs, or the pyramid schemes in the business of scamming people...
As long as what they are doing is legal, and mining cryptocurrency is that, then they are businesses and not crime syndicates or what have you. There's no shortage of legal businesses setting the world afire for profit.
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Mod parent more insightful.
It's a bubble. But that doesn't mean the bursting isn't going to do damage. It's become a rather large bubble.
how are they identifying miners? (Score:1)
Are they going to penalize any high consumption rate? Do they have some heuristics to identify those by pattern of consumption? Do bitcoiners have to declare themselves as such?
All those questions are important enough to be answered righ in /. Summary, imho
Re: (Score:2)
Like in New York, they're just penalizing large operations that can easily be identified. It is somewhat idiotic, but at least in this case it's just a price hike, which may survive a court challenge. It does seem discriminatory since the activity itself is perfectly legal.
Re: (Score:2)
they're just penalizing large operations that can easily be identified. It is somewhat idiotic
On the contrary, this is the only approach that really makes sense. It keeps down the worst excesses without having to sniff up everyone's back sides, and without creating additional management bureaucracy.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah but I could just be running a datacentre hosting Internet gambling websites (or similar) which is 100% as bad no matter how you look at it, if not worse. The practice is intrinsically discriminatory. If there's a shortage of power on the grid? Sure, maybe. You might have to ration. Doesn't seem like that's the case though.
Re: (Score:2)
Are they going to penalize any high consumption rate? Do they have some heuristics to identify those by pattern of consumption?
I imagine they're going over there and taking a look. Acres of ASICS? Yep that's a bitcoin mine.
Re: (Score:2)
It could be as simple as taking their customers' word on whether they qualify for certain class of service or not. If the utility then discovers the customer is lying to them, then they can take action. Most businesses will tell the truth--this guy is clearly known to be crypto mining. That's the way it works here when registering for a new service. The utility company has to come install it anyway, so they get a pretty good sense of whether the business is being truthful. I have several sites register
Paying _lower_ rates? (Score:2)
The miners used to pay a lower, high-density load rate for their electricity.
Classic bait-and switch.
(But in this case I approve - were they really getting a subsidy before this?).
Re: (Score:2)
They were in fact simply paying the current rate, and enjoying a lack of regulation. Choosing to regulate them is in no way a bait and switch.
Re: (Score:2)
Fuck off, bitroll. (Score:2)
"The data processing uses the same amount of power as crypto mining, he told the Wenatchee World. "Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said."
What he's really saying is "I want everyone else to subsidize my grotesque waste of electricity."
Unfortunately for him, utilities have been differentiating between industries for a long time now. Congratulations, your consumption patterns have now made you "disfavored".
really? (Score:3)
"Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Drop him a line (Score:1)
I don't think most of you have thought this throug (Score:1)
I see a ton of people cheering on the regulation of what type of processing you're allowed to do on equipment you own using electricity you pay for.
Don't be surprised if this comes back to bite you in the ass in the form of regulating all encryption (such as communications, which they have wanted to regulate for decades) or general computing (if solving math problems that you don't like is a horrific waste that should be regulated then why not other forms of computing?)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, how cute, now trying to defend cryptocurrencies by equating them with crypto.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, cryptography is cryptography. Very good, you get a gold star.
As a fellow Washingtonian (Score:2)
I approve of this message... er, new rate structure.
It will become a non-issue as years go on (Score:2)
Re:Solar and Wind (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're a bunch of freeloaders.
They are whores to the cheap energy gangbang (Score:2)
Because that would require more work and investment than merely trying to arbitrage electricity rates. See, bitcoin miners are like a swarm of fucking locus. Today they will gather wherever the most favorable power situation is. Tomorrow when the environment changes they will pack up and move on to the next favorable corn field. Errr. utility.
Installing solar panels would constitute an investment and signify a desire to mitigate some of their externalities. Bitcoin miners care not about such things.
Re: (Score:1)
"dont kids have a lot of acronyms nowadays?"
this is like watching an out of touch comedian whos still making airline food jokes. yeesh
Let the trolls eat brain farts (Score:2)
They thrive or at least survive on being fed. But I strongly suspect some of them are vacuously motivated by the hope of propagating vacuous Subjects.