Crypto Miners in Georgia Consume 10% of the Entire Nation’s Power

https://www.thedailychain.com/crypto-miners-in-georgia-consume-10-of-the-entire-nations-power/

by grumpypoet • 7 years ago

42 35 7 years ago

thedailychain.com

jimbob45• 7 years ago

I guess the thinking is that there's no way to enforce legislation to stop mining? Something's gotta give here though.

Mirioron• 7 years ago

You could just charge for the electricity and the problem would solve itself.

baroffoos4• 7 years ago

I wonder what can be done about this. These crypto calculations are totally useless RNG and are trashing our planet. One solution I have seen is to charge for power on a non linear scale so for normal users its fairly cheap but if you start to use very high amounts of power it becomes more expensive per kwh.

This method doesn't sit too well with me but I don't have any other better suggestions.

creato• 7 years ago

Electricity in this area is currently free:

The problem reportedly persists in the Svaneti region where electricity is free due to harsh living conditions. Free electricity has drawn quite a lot of enterprises and the area has developed into a Bitcoin mining economy that is also “patronised by high-ranking officials” according to locals quoted by Kommersant daily. The locals face frequent power outages.

"What can be done" is: sell electricity at market rate, and rebate the proceeds to the residents in the area. The economic situation will be effectively the same, but bitcoin miners won't be able to freeload electricity.

BlueTemplar4• 7 years ago

Increasing demand for renewable energy - thrashing our planet ?

mikeyouse• 7 years ago

Every KwH spent on useless calculations could be better spent heating a home, lighting a room, smelting some ore, or literally anything productive.

tus88• 7 years ago

In Australia electricity and gas both have a certain amount at a lower rate, with amoumts exceeding that going at a higher rate, also different on/off peak.

I suppose having a particularly steep increase over an amount only cryptominers will hit would be good.

bouncycastle• 7 years ago

I wonder what can be done about this.

You can do something about this: support Proof of Stake crypto-currencies and denounce Proof of Work ones.

cryptocoder2• 7 years ago

In contrast to proof of work, proof of stake will support itself since it doesn't come with the high power demands.

supercommand• 7 years ago

This is literally how most electricity is charged. I’ve been in probably 30+ non European countries and it is frequently billed this way. Potable water is usually the same. Residential users rarely exceed the standard allowance so they never come across tiered pricing.

In fact most larger cities not only have tier pricing but also peak pricing inside tier levels.

Commercial and industrial is its own game, they have tiers and on/off peak charges along with load shedding requirements. Often it’s billed not just kWh but also peak amperage draw.

Edit: by load shedding I mean commercial/industrial end users often have to be able to accept incoming excess power from the grid that residential use isn’t consuming due to weather/events grid failures etc. Power grids are immensely complex and very interesting beasts.

boomboomsubban• 7 years ago

What changed to cause the weeklong outages they're blaming on the mining? As if they can fix that, this still seems like a win for everyone.

Mengkudulangsat• 7 years ago

region where electricity is free

That's your problem right there. You either need floating prices or strict regulation to prevent misallocation of resources.

tacon• 7 years ago

"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Stein#Stein's_Law

antisthenes• 7 years ago

Wouldn't everything that cannot go on forever, eventually stop?

I mean, that is the definition of forever.

ttul• 7 years ago

It’s a fair bit worse than this. Organized crime ensures that power is free for mining.

https://www.wired.com/story/cryptocurrency-boom-post-soviet-...

anm892• 7 years ago

Interesting headline because it's totally accurate and there is nothing wrong with it but it still feels very misleading.

Does anyone know what the AP standard is for referencing the country VS the state of Georgia? Is this discouraged?

loeg• 7 years ago

I live in the US and if I see Georgia in the news, I tend to assume it's the country rather than the US state.

stbtrax• 7 years ago

Same, unless it's about eroding rights for women's reproductive health

adwn2• 7 years ago

[...] it still feels very misleading [...] referencing the country VS the state of Georgia

You know, there exists a world outside the US. And yet, when "Georgia" and "nation" is mentioned in the same sentence, you feel misled because it doesn't refer to the US state of Georgia? The problem is with you, not with the headline.

ickelbawd• 7 years ago

Nah. It’s still ambiguous. I also read it to be referring to the state of Georgia in the the US Nation. It would be a lot clearer to say Nation of Georgia. Then there’s no ambiguity.

anm892• 7 years ago

I'm writing the comment from outside the US. The fact that they referenced Georgia and "nation" seperately is part of what made me think they were referencing a Georgia that was part of a nation not a Georgia that was a nation. The language is confusing.

Also the GDP of the state of Georgia is 30x larger than the country of Georgia and it has 300% of the population. The state is a drastically more important world player than the country (IE it would be drastically bigger news if this was true of the state than the country). There is nothing US centric about this.

wp381640• 7 years ago

No surprise now that bitcoin mining tends to migrate to heavily corrupt regions with subsidised power but likely something that the original design didn't anticipate when it spoke about distributed mining

cryptocoder2• 7 years ago

There are plenty of proof of stake consensus protocols out there already (Avalanche, iChing, Ouroboros, ...). These do not require the huge power demands of proof of work to provide network security. As a result, they also don't need the high ongoing investment to support the decentralized network.

andwaal• 7 years ago

As a side note; I was lucky enough to visit the town from the article, Mestia, a couple of years ago while doing a ski-touring holiday in Georgia and it was a truly remarkable place. Traveling there took hours driving on steep mountain roads which was constantly blocked due to rock slides and snow. When we finally arrived one of the first ting we saw was a wolf walking the outskirt of the town, which the town had a quite clever solution to, packs of gigantic dogs roaming free around the town. The town itself is packed with Svaneti Towers, which is placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. So if you get the chance, please visit Svaneti before tourism or/and cypto miners destroys is.

And btw; the skiing was awesome!

kokonata• 7 years ago

You can earn free bitcoin every day https://www.bitcoingpumining.com

Crypto Miners in Georgia Consume 10% of the Entire Nation’s Power

Related Stories