North Carolina County Advances Temporary Crypto Mining Ban

According to that information, on April 4, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners approved a one-year ban on crypto mining. The moratorium would start on May 2 if it were granted during a public hearing.

In another place, ABC WLOS 13 has made available a paper that was allegedly made by county officials. According to the paper, authorities plan to categorize bitcoin mining as a particular land use and set it apart from other data center activities.

Single-device mining is exempt from the proposed prohibition, but server farms—defined as any mining operation employing three or more computers—are covered by it. The prohibition is a result of a number of detrimental repercussions of cryptocurrency mining, including excessive power use, environmental harm, electrical waste, and noise pollution.

The prohibition will be in effect from May 1, 2023, for one year. If authorities establish a regulatory standard for cryptocurrency mining before the deadline, it may be over sooner. Over the past few months, a number of additional mining-related news articles have focused on North Carolina. A hundred miles away from Buncombe County, in Cherokee County, most of the tales are about noise complaints.

Cherokee County does not yet have a prohibition on the practice, although a number of organizations, including Sierra Club, have petitioned the county to do so.

Other than North Carolina, a number of other governments have put their own limitations on cryptocurrency mining. In December 2022, British Columbia, imitating a number of other Canadian governments, enacted a temporary ban on cryptocurrency mining.

In the summer of 2022, New York also approved a temporary ban on specific crypto-mining activities. Months later, in November, the prohibition was finally put into effect.