There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.

—Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage

I believe "proof of work" has seen it's day. The ideal solution would be for blockchain protocol to evolve to a more sustainable consensus mechanism. This way, Bitcoin crazed private equity firms will have to go find something else to do. Short of this, it is imperative that no allowances are made for cryptomining operators. At the very least, the cryptocurrency mining industry should be taxed hard, considering it's demonstrably trashing the environment. Permitting should be hard as well. Though it may look like it from the outside, cryptomining operations set up in old power plants are a far cry from public utilities. Cryptomining rigs are not "data centers" either. Andrew Cuomo was duped into supporting Greenidge early on but this should hardly be taken as precedent.

I've made this website because the issue of massive scale cryptcurrency mining has been woefully underreported. People should know about, understand, and have a say on any enormous crypto mining operations that are installed in their backyards. It's never too late to change course but people will need to let their elected representatives know that this is not an issue we can afford to ignore.

In New York, Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-125) is introducing legislation for a temporary moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations in order to allow for better understanding of the issue and for the development of apropriate trade, legal, and environmental frameworks before any more facilities go online. This is a start.

–Kevin Lahoda