North Carolina’s Buncombe County is considering a temporary one-year crypto mining ban, according to a report from Citizen Times on April 5.
Buncombe County proposes moratorium
That report indicates that the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners advanced a one-year moratorium on crypto mining during a meeting on April 4. A public hearing will be held on May 2, and the moratorium will begin on that date if approved.
Elsewhere, ABC WLOS 13 has published a document seemingly created by county officials. That document indicates that officials intend to define crypto mining as a specific land use and differentiate cryptocurrency mining from other data center applications.
The proposed ban does not apply to single-device mining but does apply to server farms — defined as any mining operation involving three or more computers.
The ban is motivated by various adverse effects of crypto mining, such as high electricity consumption, environmental damage, electronic waste, and noise pollution.
The ban is set to last for one year until May 1, 2024. However, it may end sooner if officials create a regulatory standard for crypto mining before the deadline.
Other areas are also concerned about mining
North Carolina has been the subject of various other mining-related stories in the news over the past several months. Those stories mainly relate to noise complaints in Cherokee County, which is located about 100 miles from Buncombe County.
Though Cherokee County does not have its own ban, certain groups, including Sierra Club, are petitioning the county to impose a ban on the practice.
Outside of North Carolina, various other jurisdictions have imposed their own restrictions on crypto mining. British Columbia, following suit from a number of other Canadian provinces, imposed a temporary ban on crypto mining in December 2022.
New York also advanced a time-limited ban on certain crypto-mining operations in the summer of 2022. The ban was ultimately enacted months later in November.
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