Canadian border town suspends crypto mining to make sure town looks presentable

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Massena, a small town in New York near the Canadian border, has temporarily halted new crypto mining operations in the region.

Crypto mining suspended for aesthetic reasons

Due to cosmetic concerns, officials in the city of Massena have imposed a 90-day moratorium on new Bitcoin mining activity, according to a report released by the Associated Press on Friday.

Massena City Supervisor Steve OShaughnessy said officials decided to draft new regulations for minors after noticing trailers containing computers on a main city road.

We don’t want it to be littered with these trailers pumping Bitcoin, he told WWNY-TV. We just want to make sure that if they come here it’s a nice presentable building.

The 90-day restriction has apparently been used by city officials to ensure that the roadsides in Massena are not blocked by trailers and shipping containers being moved off-road.

Meanwhile, Massena Electric is said to be in talks with three cryptocurrency companies. The power company, according to TBEN News, has its own ban on dealing with new crypto miners. Massena Electric says that any deals made will protect current customers. The utility and its customers could even benefit from increased sales.

“The key components for developers are low cost electricity and reliability, two things we have always had,” said Andrew McMahon, Managing Director of Massena Electric.

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After a decade of job losses in small border communities across North America, bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining companies are reporting a return of some industrial activity in places like Massena.

Cheap electricity is usually a big incentive for Bitcoin miners in these places, and in return, these companies promise jobs and help jumpstart the local economy.

Indeed, due to the massive crackdown on crypto mining in China and the planned hash rate shift from east to west, these small North American communities could see greater Bitcoin mining activity. Huobi, a former Chinese cryptocurrency exchange, moved its overseas operations to Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, among others in 2017, the year China banned cryptocurrency exchanges. .

Meanwhile, despite the current drop in the hash rate, the largest Bitcoin mining operations in North America continue to expand their capacity in order to gain a larger share of the market.

The control of more of the global hash rate distribution by North American Bitcoin miners may also help the industry gain favor with regulators, especially in the area of ​​environmental protection.

Bitcoin market dominance remained below 50%. TradingView

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Featured image from Unsplash, charts from TradingView.

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