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.
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights Open Thread: If Only We’d Listened…
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.
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.
Tom Levenson
@Tom Levenson: Reading Molly White is always a dose of reality
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!”
Kropacetic
Hell, Im skeptical of investment in companies making actual products with intrinsic value. This cryptocurrency is utter madness.
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.
Captain C
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.
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.
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.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ha! I was just thinking about that. I didn’t know he was lying. I thought he was being dumb.
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.
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.
Captain C
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think part of it was the city told him that they couldn’t legally do that.
CaseyL
@randy khan:
Even now? With bitcoin crashing so hard?
There are entirely too many stupid people in this world.
catclub
so broke cryptobros can not pay their electric bills.
FTFY
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Yep. That was the purpose of all those Superbowl ads.
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.
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.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
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.
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.
WereBear
Disappointed in Gillibrand.
Kent
Watching the tour hasn’t been the same since we lost Paul Sherwen.
Steeplejack
@Central Planning:
It’s a known but innocuous bug. Second-party edits don’t “take.”
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?
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.
opiejeanne
@Steeplejack: And I just got the “edit” button for your post. I’ve never had that happen before.
mistermix
@ian:
LOL – I knew I was making a hell of a claim when I typed that. I stand corrected.
mistermix
@Burnspbesq: So why do you think it hasn’t happened yet? Serious question – I thought they would step in by now.
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).
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
dm
Okay, so cryptocurrency thread….
Even though this is The Intercept, here’s some serious schadenfreude-food:
ICE apparently does some class of international financial crimes, as well as immigration, but….
Central Planning
@Steeplejack: I know, but that’s no fun :D
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.
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?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Exactly. You know the bubble is getting close to popping when the smart money starts running ads to drum up greater fools.
trollhattan
@ian:
Jesus, how do you go from that to “The Negroes are coming for your kids’ brains!”?
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.
GoBlueInOak
@Tom Levenson: You just don’t understand the tip-to-tip efficiency of the blockchain…
StringOnAStick
@Ken:
StringOnAStick
@The Moar You Know:
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.
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.
Ken
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.
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.
Kropacetic
@Xavier: Then let it be regulated into oblivion.
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.
StringOnAStick
@Mnemosyne: That’s perfect. I have yet to meet anyone other than men as far as being into crypto goes.
catclub
@Roger Moore: two ads for FTX in the latest New Yorker
catclub
@StringOnAStick:
A woman who ran a crypto scam is now on the FBI’s most wanted list. Equality!