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You are here: Home / Open Threads / I’m Sure the Christofascist Supremes Will Reverse This Next Term

I’m Sure the Christofascist Supremes Will Reverse This Next Term

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Some good news from my neck of the woods:

A controversial bitcoin mining operation on the largest of central New York’s Finger Lakes does not meet the requirements of state climate laws, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation ruled Thursday, denying an air permit request the entity’s owner, Greenidge Generation LLC., made in March 2021.

The Finger Lakes are a stunningly beautiful wine producing region in Central/Western New York. Greenidge has a natural gas power plant there, which was supposed to be used for peak power generation (mainly in the Summer). Instead, they installed a Bitcoin mining operation there. Of course they should be shut down, and it finally happened. New York doesn’t need to pollute itself so cryptobros can get rich.

This ruling is especially important in New York, where some Democrats who should know better are Bitcoin-curious, mainly because Wall Street wants to get in on the shitcoin action. The most famous example is New York Mayor Eric Adams, but Kirsten Gillibrand is also in the mix. She and Wyoming’s dumbest Republican, Cynthia Lummis, have teamed up to push legislation “regulating” the crypto industry by basically giving it everything it wants. I’ll be writing to Gillibrand to tell her to drop this shitcoin nonsense, and I suggest that all New Yorkers call or write her office, too.

In some good New York news, Kathy Hochul won Tuesday’s primary and will be elected Governor this Fall, after replacing Andrew Cuomo last year.

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    Tom Levenson

    Nothing like burning the planet to “mine” more of an “asset” that has no value other than what the next biggest fool puts on it, just as the supply of large fools crashes.

  2. 2.

    sdhays

    Good news, indeed. Cryptocurrencies should just be banned. If someone asked you to invent a massive money making scam that facilitated some of the most serious crimes of the day and that was also maximally counterproductive in the context of climate change, you would be hard-pressed to come up with something worse.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    @sdhays: 

    PROMOTER: “My new crypto coin does all that, and requires adenochrome extracted from the living brains of trafficked children!”

    INVESTORS: “Hmm, not sure we want to go that far…”

    PROMOTER: “I anticipate a minimum 38% weekly increase in coin value!”

    INVESTORS: “Yay!”

  5. 5.

    Kropacetic

    @Tom Levenson: Nothing like burning the planet to “mine” more of an “asset” that has no value other than what the next biggest fool puts on it, just as the supply of large fools crashes.

    Hell, Im skeptical of investment in companies making actual products with intrinsic value. This cryptocurrency is utter madness.

  6. 6.

    The Moar You Know

    At this stage of the game, the only people holding bitcoin are the suckers.  The real money has already cashed out and moved on.

  7. 7.

    Captain C

    In some good New York news, Kathy Hochul won Tuesday’s primary and will be elected Governor this Fall, after replacing Andrew Cuomo last year.

    Not only that, but Tom Suozzi finished 3rd, also trailing NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (who I didn’t even know was running until I did my pre-voting due diligence on the ballot.

  8. 8.

    Kent

    Too bad Eric Adams didn’t actually put his money where his mouth was and have his salary denominated in bitcoin instead of dollars.  Because the people of New York could have saved some real money on that deal.

  9. 9.

    Gin & Tonic

    OT, but it’s so good to hear the great Phil Liggett’s voice again. All is right with the world, at least for the moment.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kent:

    Too bad Eric Adams didn’t actually put his money where his mouth was and have his salary denominated in bitcoin instead of dollars.

    Ha! I was just thinking about that. I didn’t know he was lying. I thought he was being dumb.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    Any idea if Gov. Hochul will eventually sign the bitcoin mining permit moratorium bill? Just read something about that the other day. Sounds like she’s putting off the bill’s supporters, who are in turn threatening to withhold support in the election, but that might be an idle threat in NY.

  12. 12.

    randy khan

    There is a burgeoning business in using off-peak electric capacity to “mine” (dumb word for this, but never mind) cryptocurrency.  There are people selling shipping containers filled with computers that you can hook into a power plant for that purpose.  It’s insane.

  15. 15.

    catclub

    New York doesn’t need to pollute itself so cryptobros can get rich.

    so broke cryptobros can not pay their electric bills.
    FTFY

  17. 17.

    Steeplejack

    Respite OT:

    The Tour de France has started—yee-haw! Time trials in Copenhagen, Denmark, are on USA Network now (until 2:00 p.m. EDT).

    The Tour is one of my favorite video wallpaper shows in the summer. Beautiful scenery, excellent announcers and interesting action. Rainy and not very scenic today, but it’s good to have it back.

  18. 18.

    Kropacetic

    Didn’t they make it illegal to create alternative currency in the US during the gilded age due to company money only usable at company stores?

    This is promoted as currency, it’s in the name. I would hope that law should apply here.

    Obligatory IANAL.

  20. 20.

    Central Planning

    Hey, I got the edit button for Steeplejack’s #19 when I refreshed by browser.

    I tried putting in some bitcoin hot takes but it didn’t work.

  21. 21.

    ian

    Wyoming’s dumbest Republican, Cynthia Lummis

    Lummis is fairly dumb, but she is no Jillian Ballow.  Mrs. Ballow was (she resigned earlier this year to take a better paying job) in charge of our public schools.

  23. 23.

    Kent

    @Steeplejack:

    The Tour de France has started—yee-haw! Time trials in Copenhagen, Denmark, are on USA Network now (until 2:00 p.m. EDT).

    The Tour is one of my favorite video wallpaper shows in the summer. Beautiful scenery, excellent announcers and interesting action. Rainy and not very scenic today, but it’s good to have it back.

    Watching the tour hasn’t been the same since we lost Paul Sherwen.

  25. 25.

    Burnspbesq

    Regulating crypto is trivially easy. The SEC just needs to adopt a rule (dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s under the Administrative Procedure Act because fuck off Supreme Court) calling it what it is: a security. Presto change-o, it’s subject to a well-understood legal framework that both the SEC and DOJ know how to enforce (if they choose to).

    See how easy that was?

  26. 26.

    mistermix

    @Betty Cracker:  My guess is she will – she’s not a Cuomo type who will veto shit just to show that she’s boss.  But, as someone from Buffalo, she also has to stay popular with downstate, which is where the interest in cryptocurrency comes from.

  28. 28.

    mistermix

    @ian:

    Lummis is fairly dumb, but she is no Jillian Ballow.  Mrs. Ballow was (she resigned earlier this year to take a better paying job) in charge of our public schools.

    LOL – I knew I was making a hell of a claim when I typed that.  I stand corrected.

  30. 30.

    Burnspbesq

    @mistermix:

    Hell if I know. “There are still three Trump appointees on the Commission” is as good an explanation as any. Gary Gensler, the new chair, is a good guy, but he’s no Mary Jo White. I don’t know much about Gurbir Grewal, the new head of the Enforcement Division, although he has an interesting resume (head of the economic crimes unit in the U.S. Attorney’s office in NJ before becoming state AG).

  31. 31.

    ian

    @mistermix:

    She (Barlow) wanted to ban Critical Race Theory because a parent complained a student drew a stick figure in their notes talking about revolution.

    Ironically, how ham-fisted her attempt was caused it to backfire.  As of now, CRT is still legal in Wyoming.  The republican running to replace her is running a campaign centered on banning it.

    Here’s a link to the offending student doodle

  32. 32.

    dm

    Okay, so cryptocurrency thread….

    Even though this is The Intercept, here’s some serious schadenfreude-food:

    Cryptocurrency Titan Coinbase Providing “Geo Tracking Data” to ICE

    ICE is now able to track transactions made through nearly a dozen different digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, and Tether.

    COINBASE, THE LARGEST cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is selling Immigrations and Customs Enforcement a suite of features used to track and identify cryptocurrency users, according to contract documents shared with The Intercept.

    https://theintercept.com/2022/06/29/crypto-coinbase-tracer-ice/

    ICE apparently does some class of international financial crimes, as well as immigration, but….

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    This is one of those problems there is good hope will take care of itself.  There has been a general bear market, and cryptocurrency (and cryptocurrency-related businesses) have been leading the way.  If Bitcoin continues to drop in value, nobody will want to mine it anymore.

  35. 35.

    dm

    @ian: I don’t think it’s the stick-figure that bothered her as much as the “Marx”, “Capital”, “Bourgeoisie”, “Revolution is inevitable” stuff. Though, I’d expect she’d take some solace in the “Sorry, Karl, not here” annotation.

    Sounds like notes from a Middle School class on maybe 19th Century European History?

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud: 

    That was the purpose of all those Superbowl ads.

    Exactly. You know the bubble is getting close to popping when the smart money starts running ads to drum up greater fools.

  38. 38.

    GoBlueInOak

    @Burnspbesq: I mean, the USPS Board of Governors is now majority Biden appointees and that Trumper Postmaster General still has a job, so….

    Hurry up and wait seems to be the M.O. of this Administration.

  40. 40.

    StringOnAStick

    @Ken:

    PROMOTER: “My new crypto coin does all that, and requires adenochrome extracted from the living brains of trafficked children!”

    INVESTORS: “Hmm, not sure we want to go that far…”

    PROMOTER: “I anticipate a minimum 38% weekly increase in coin value!”

    INVESTORS: “Yay!”

    This is part of why housing costs (buy or, especially rent) has been going up at unsustainable rates in the last 2 years: hedge funds saw the 10-20% returns the small guy house flippers were getting and decided they could do as well or better and that’s when Wall Street money got into housing in a big way.  I recall an NPR story I think over a year ago of a large DR Horton subdivision just completed in TX, and a fund bought the entire thing and turned it into rentals.  It never hit the market for single home buyers, it went straight from completion immediately into large corporate-owned rental stock.

    Some blame Boomers for every ill but it just might be that the housing issue as it currently sits got afterburner fuel when Wall Street noticed the better than 5% returns and jumped in with both feet, making the price increases jump even more.  The Giant Pool of Floating Money is always looking for yield, and housing has been some of the best for several years now.  Investing has no ethos of social responsibility such as policy to try to support the American Dream; that’s the government’s bailiwick (D-led government only of course; its very clear what R-led government is for).

  41. 41.

    StringOnAStick

    @The Moar You Know:

    At this stage of the game, the only people holding bitcoin are the suckers.  The real money has already cashed out and moved on.

    I never paid much attention to Bitcoin as an investment since I know a scam when I see one.  I knew it had reached this stage when an friend who is unsophisticated in the ways of investing got himself into a “Facebook Bitcoin investment group” that was telling him when to buy and sell; this was late last fall.  I did my best to explain why Bitcoin was bad on issues he cares about (AGW, Sex trafficking of kids, etc) and that these groups aren’t giving this advice out of the goodness of their hearts.  He said he limited it to just $1,000 and would add no more; he’s since lost pretty much all of it.  What made my heart hurt is he’s a solid, goodhearted guy trying to cobble together anything he can to add more to his family $ to support his wife and daughter, and these “make big money now!” scams prey on the desperation of the working class, which is where the crytoscams are focusing now: on people too unsophisticated in investing and who are desperate to try to increase their income above the treading water level.  Evil bastards.

  42. 42.

    StringOnAStick

    @CaseyL: Yes, even now with crypto crashing so hard, because people are remembering all the stories they heard about people getting rich on crypto, and that’s still the underlying idea that people are clinging too.  Big money was made, emphasis on the was.  Past performance, future results, blah, blah, blah.  Works every time because by the time these tail end adopters are getting involved, it’s definitely in the was period.

  43. 43.

    Ken

    @Tom Levenson: Reading Molly White is always a dose of reality

    Reading through that, I get the impression that a lot of the value of many crypto companies is in the form of loans they’ve made to other crypto companies.

    Which has a certain resemblance to the technique whereby two people can pump up the value of an NFT by selling it back and forth to one another.

  44. 44.

    Xavier

    “Regulating” Bitcoin makes no sense. The point of regulating is to make sure promises are kept and people are not cheated. But Bitcoin promises nothing and cheating people is the point.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    Some smart person called crypto “multilevel marketing for men,” and now I can’t unsee it.

    At least LuLaRoe gave you poor-quality leggings instead of empty data bits.

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