New York Prohibition of Mining Law

[joker_josue]

A few days ago, I came across news about a law that was passed in New York, with the aim of prohibiting Bitcoin mining in that state.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law on Tuesday banning certain bitcoin mining operations that run on carbon-based power sources.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/new-york-governor-signs-law-cracking-down-on-bitcoin-mining.html

Apparently, only mining companies that use 100% renewable energy will be authorized.

For the next two years, unless a proof-of-work mining company uses 100% renewable energy, it will not be allowed to expand or renew permits, and new entrants will not be allowed to come online.

What impact do you think this will have on mining?

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[DaveF]

None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Except for the ones that were obvious scams all the new mining setups coming into NY were 100% renewable. Also, in NY since power is more or less fungible, all you have to do is BUY from a green supplier not have green power coming in.

It's also a ploy to get some money to redevelop a lot of old power plants that the miners wanted to take over and run. Putting aside everything else. You have a bunch of locations that could host mining now as-is BUT they are at the edge of being useful. A few more years and they will not be. But, if you leave them empty you can then gut and rebuild into something newer and better.

It's get a little revenue today vs more revenue tomorrow.
The other side of that is the 'bird in hand' argument. Will you find someone to redevelop? How long will that take? And so on.

But since there were no pending permits anyway, BTC is hovering at $16k, and so on it's not a big deal.

Also, and this is a personal big one, it's tough to fight the states like Texas where miners get paid more then they would make mining to shut down during hot days to conserve power. https://fortune.com/2022/07/12/texas-bitcoin-miners-paid-shut-down-power-grid-electricity-blackout-heat/ You can't fight it when the state government takes money out of its citizens pockets to give it to businesses. *This is not just a Texas thing, other states do it for other industries, but for here and now we are talking about mining.

-Dave

[joker_josue]

Except for the ones that were obvious scams all the new mining setups coming into NY were 100% renewable. Also, in NY since power is more or less fungible, all you have to do is BUY from a green supplier not have green power coming in.

This observation is interesting! I had no idea that new companies are already exploring these types of options.

However, do you think that the companies that build ASICs will improve the equipment, in order to be more efficient?
I still think miner builder companies should improve hardware to consume less power. Something they are not doing yet, in my opinion.

[DaveF]

I still think miner builder companies should improve hardware to consume less power. Something they are not doing yet, in my opinion.

It's been discussed before in other places on the forum but miners are building more efficient BUT more powerful miners.

Every new generation of miners use less power to generate more hashes. BUT, they then cram in more chips to make each miner more powerful. Made up numbers but: If in the last generation you needed 100 chips at 10 watts each to generate X amount of hashes but in the newer generation you need 80 chips at 8 watts each to generate the same X amount of hashes you could in theory make a miner just as fast as the old one but that uses a lot less power because you would be using less chips that are more efficient.

But what they do is make a miner that is much faster then the old generation by putting more of the more efficient using even more power but then now generate X+50% hashes. 

Great for big miners in big data centers where power and noise does not matter. And well, the small home / hobby miners are out of luck.

To put it bluntly, for now, WE ARE NOT THEIR TARGET CUSTOMERS. There are obvious exceptions, there are people here who are running larger farms and such, but are the exception.

Gone are the days of the R4 and things like it, for now anyway.

-Dave

[philipma1957]

Except for the ones that were obvious scams all the new mining setups coming into NY were 100% renewable. Also, in NY since power is more or less fungible, all you have to do is BUY from a green supplier not have green power coming in.

This observation is interesting! I had no idea that new companies are already exploring these types of options.

However, do you think that the companies that build ASICs will improve the equipment, in order to be more efficient?
I still think miner builder companies should improve hardware to consume less power. Something they are not doing yet, in my opinion.

That does not work to lower power use. Simple economics.

[stompix]

Except for the ones that were obvious scams all the new mining setups coming into NY were 100% renewable.

Cough, cough...Greenidge
DigiHost gas powerplant in Buffalo?
TW's Lake Mariner hydro powerplant facility that somehow is just 91% renewable... 

However, do you think that the companies that build ASICs will improve the equipment, in order to be more efficient?
I still think miner builder companies should improve hardware to consume less power. Something they are not doing yet, in my opinion.

Mining is not a fixed game where you need 100Exahashes and that's it, you obtain those with 10 times less power and you have reduced consumption.

The consumption is influenced by the revenue, if Bitcoin drops to $100 you will have miners earning $90 000 a day and they obviously won't be able to spend more than that on power. If it goes to $100k you have a revenue of $90 million a day so you could easily spend half of that on your power bill and still get a huge profit.
No matter how energy efficient those new ASICs will be, long term if the revenue per day for miners grows ten times so will their power consumption with just a few percentages off.

[DaveF]

Except for the ones that were obvious scams all the new mining setups coming into NY were 100% renewable.

Cough, cough...Greenidge
DigiHost gas powerplant in Buffalo?
TW's Lake Mariner hydro powerplant facility that somehow is just 91% renewable... 

Which was why I said that all the NEW ones were committed to buying / using 100% renewable.
There have been no new applications that I have seen for months, probably due to the BTC price drop, but the last few that were proposed were either supposed to be 100% renewable or buying renewable.

Or to put it another way, it's good PR for the government 'we are making NY green' while actually not doing much of anything.

Kind of like after all the insurance companies were forcing all the safety improvements on cars, and the the government stepped in and made anti-lock brakes mandatory. After most car insurance companies were jacking up the rates of cars that did not have them into the stratosphere.

-Dave

[stompix]

Which was why I said that all the NEW ones were committed to buying / using 100% renewable.

Define new, Digihost bought that gas plant at the end of the last year and it has barely come online for a few months after acquiring permits, TW Lake Mariner facility is not even completed and runs at 10% capacity.

There have been no new applications that I have seen for months, probably due to the BTC price drop, but the last few that were proposed were either supposed to be 100% renewable or buying renewable.

A slight difference between applications and things that are currently running, and obviously, the ones running are the problem that caused this, not future plans.
Common, let's not start this all bitcoin mining energy used is green and has zero impact drama, you know just as well as me that it's nowhere near the real truth. Miners weren't flocking to Montana to admire the view and they are not mining with hydropower because it's good for the planet, they mine like that because it's good for their pockets and they will do so with whatever it's cheaper. Let's ask every miner here if he's willing to pay 3 extra cents for green energy or just 3 cents for coal, we all know the outcome.

[joker_josue]

Every new generation of miners use less power to generate more hashes. BUT, they then cram in more chips to make each miner more powerful. Made up numbers but: If in the last generation you needed 100 chips at 10 watts each to generate X amount of hashes but in the newer generation you need 80 chips at 8 watts each to generate the same X amount of hashes you could in theory make a miner just as fast as the old one but that uses a lot less power because you would be using less chips that are more efficient.

You are absolutely right! That for me is not making things more efficient, but rather they are increasing the hash per machine, with a slight reduction in consumption per hash. Basically they are using the same ASIC technology that was used 8-10 years ago.

I'm a little sorry, the market in this requirement has become a little stagnant. But perhaps with so many issues arising about energy, companies are starting to change their view of things.

[philipma1957]

Which was why I said that all the NEW ones were committed to buying / using 100% renewable.

Define new, Digihost bought that gas plant at the end of the last year and it has barely come online for a few months after acquiring permits, TW Lake Mariner facility is not even completed and runs at 10% capacity.

There have been no new applications that I have seen for months, probably due to the BTC price drop, but the last few that were proposed were either supposed to be 100% renewable or buying renewable.

A slight difference between applications and things that are currently running, and obviously, the ones running are the problem that caused this, not future plans.
Common, let's not start this all bitcoin mining energy used is green and has zero impact drama, you know just as well as me that it's nowhere near the real truth. Miners weren't flocking to Montana to admire the view and they are not mining with hydropower because it's good for the planet, they mine like that because it's good for their pockets and they will do so with whatever it's cheaper. Let's ask every miner here if he's willing to pay 3 extra cents for green energy or just 3 cents for coal, we all know the outcome.

the question is will all carbon based mining in usa be fined 3 cents a kwatt and all solar based mining be reward 3 cents a kwatt.

You need to understand carbon based fuels have had huge incentives for decades.

one simple photo should explain the incentives quite clearly




how about every pit like the one above must be plead and then lined with solar cells. As the cost of destroying the mountain that it once was.

Now if all coal paid that price for killing the land then coal would not be very cheap at all. So coal is being subsidized here in USA as I type.

I can make a very simple statement this needs to be addressed one way or the other and so far it is not being addressed in a good way.

look at satellite shots and you will see mile and miles and miles and mile and miles of these pits. Every one was a subsidy for coal mining.

@ joker_josue

 if I magically made a 1ph miner using 1000 watts and restricted it to residential homes only it would work.

But I can tell you we are not going to see that happen.

If the gear could be made it would be 3ph at 3000 watts with the diff shooting up to 200t vs the current 34t

Better machines never lowered power usage.

Proper rules for "cheap" carbon fuel would had worked far better. Bit in this world on this planet with the current governments we share this is not going to help.

Our best shot would be this version of the day the earth stood still

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/


I consider that pretty much the only shot humanity has.  We simply are too weak willed to do it without "Gort"

[DaveF]

Which was why I said that all the NEW ones were committed to buying / using 100% renewable.

Define new, Digihost bought that gas plant at the end of the last year and it has barely come online for a few months after acquiring permits, TW Lake Mariner facility is not even completed and runs at 10% capacity.

There have been no new applications that I have seen for months, probably due to the BTC price drop, but the last few that were proposed were either supposed to be 100% renewable or buying renewable.

A slight difference between applications and things that are currently running, and obviously, the ones running are the problem that caused this, not future plans.
Common, let's not start this all bitcoin mining energy used is green and has zero impact drama, you know just as well as me that it's nowhere near the real truth. Miners weren't flocking to Montana to admire the view and they are not mining with hydropower because it's good for the planet, they mine like that because it's good for their pockets and they will do so with whatever it's cheaper. Let's ask every miner here if he's willing to pay 3 extra cents for green energy or just 3 cents for coal, we all know the outcome.

I am not debating ANY of that.

Just pointing out that it was at best political theater. The BTC price is down, no new permits have been applied for. Unless we enter a bull market in the next 2 years there will be no new permits, mostly because there is no reason for them.

There is enough space and the old permitted places are still coming online and some are actively trying to sell off excess space. Pass some legislation to make yourself look good.

A small facility here on LI is shutting down due to lack of funds, even at $0.04 KWh rate, a massive tax relief package and other things their 250+ S19 and S19Pro were  / are all loosing money every day. After the cost of cooling, staff and everything else they need $21,500 to $22,000 BTC to sustain operations. When they started it was easy, all the loans are paid, the miners are paid off and so on. But now, each and every day they are loosing money. Unless something happens they are out end of 1st quarter 2023. As of now unless BTC hits $35,000 they are going to make more money selling the miners overseas then doing anything else. HOWEVER, since they are existing you can take over without going through any of the permitting and such been trying to sell for 90 days or so they started the process after labor day weekend. Zero, none, nada people are interested.

Using cars again, since I did in my earlier post it's about as pointless as saying that since there is no tire technology that can handle it we are banning all cars capable of speeds in excess of 300MPH / 480 KPH on public roads. Wait, outside of the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut there is no car that can do that kind of speed, and it's not legal in the US anyway. But you can still make yourself look good by banning those obviously dangerous 300MPH cars with tires that can't handle it.....

-Dave

[joker_josue]

@ joker_josue

 if I magically made a 1ph miner using 1000 watts and restricted it to residential homes only it would work.

But I can tell you we are not going to see that happen.

If the gear could be made it would be 3ph at 3000 watts with the diff shooting up to 200t vs the current 34t

Better machines never lowered power usage.

I happen not to be of the same opinion. I believe that the advancement of technology has to allow getting the same hash number, with half of the current consumption.

Now, I have no illusions, this cannot be done overnight. Investment in research is needed to significantly improve efficiency. But unfortunately I don't see this aspect being exploited by miner manufacturers, which is a shame. Because it seems that we are stagnant in time and technology, which is not true.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I believe that the advancement of technology has to allow getting the same hash number, with half of the current consumption.

And as other have said, all that will happen is that the mfgr's will just continue to pack more chips into the hardware until it still pulls the same amount of power per machine.

[philipma1957]

I believe that the advancement of technology has to allow getting the same hash number, with half of the current consumption.

And as other have said, all that will happen is that the mfgr's will just continue to pack more chips into the hardware until it still pulls the same amount of power per machine.

It is hard to argue with some one that does not understand the economics of mining.

world watt power available for mining is x

earnings per watt is y

xy = earnings

efficiency simply gets cancelled out by the rise in diff.

Back to topic

  giving newly built solar based mining a 3 cent per watt subsidy
 and fining carbon based mining 4 cents per watts would be a better law than what NY did.

IT would get more solar built and if mining goes bust the solar power is still good.

I bet none of us live to see that as it is a simple easy thing that would work. thus it will not get done.

BTW it is why I partnered up with buysolar years ago and even with 7 years of expansion we are still under 500kwatts of solar built due to btc.

280+110+45 = 435kwatts of arrays since 2016

[joker_josue]

BTW it is why I partnered up with buysolar years ago and even with 7 years of expansion we are still under 500kwatts of solar built due to btc.

280+110+45 = 435kwatts of arrays since 2016

Is your mining all based on solar energy right now? Or is there a mix between solar and "carbon"?

It is hard to argue with some one that does not understand the economics of mining.

world watt power available for mining is x

earnings per watt is y

xy = earnings

efficiency simply gets cancelled out by the rise in diff.

I know this very well. But I have a different point of view. And I think things should be different. It's just an opinion. But since I'm not a decision maker, I can't do much.

[mikeywith]

But unfortunately I don't see this aspect being exploited by miner manufacturers, which is a shame because it seems that we are stagnant in time and technology, which is not true.

Mining gear manufacturers have been doing NOTHING except improving efficiency, in fact, they got so busy with that to the point where all of them started to forget about the quality of their miners, now that we have got that out of the way, let's also stress that miner's efficiency has no impact on the subject in hand.

If I have 10KW to burn, It doesn't matter if that generates 100 terahash or 1000 terahash as far as the environment is concerned, but anyways, there is not much room left for improvement given the current chip size used in the most recent miners, I don't think companies will keep spending billions of dollars on that aspect, the mining business is getting saturated and with every halving things just get worse.

Given how much difficulty grew in the past years, efficiency racing is just not as "efficient", if Bitmain has to spend 2 billion dollars just to get their S21 to sub 20w/th they would probably just make more S19 xps and sell them at a premium when the bull market begins.

[joker_josue]

Mining gear manufacturers have been doing NOTHING except improving efficiency, in fact, they got so busy with that to the point where all of them started to forget about the quality of their miners, now that we have got that out of the way, let's also stress that miner's efficiency has no impact on the subject in hand.

I understand.
But it is also true, although it is unfair and does not make sense, governments will need to address these issues of increasing large energy consumption more.

Do you think that Bitcoin mining can have a say in the increase of renewable energies? That is, the big miners continue to bet heavily on these energies, helping them to develop and become more accessible?

[philipma1957]

BTW it is why I partnered up with buysolar years ago and even with 7 years of expansion we are still under 500kwatts of solar built due to btc.

280+110+45 = 435kwatts of arrays since 2016

Is your mining all based on solar energy right now? Or is there a mix between solar and "carbon"?

It is hard to argue with some one that does not understand the economics of mining.

world watt power available for mining is x

earnings per watt is y

xy = earnings

efficiency simply gets cancelled out by the rise in diff.

I know this very well. But I have a different point of view. And I think things should be different. It's just an opinion. But since I'm not a decision maker, I can't do much.

we have both solar and carbon based mining in NJ and PA

@mikey other than various governments giving incentives for solar/wind mining . We are pretty much near max they will allow for carbon based mining. I feel the NY law which is a 2 year trial run is testing the waters of forcing or incentivizing miners to build arrays to mine.

And the max efficiency is kind of like how many miles to a gallon gas can a car do.

You don't want a tiny vehicle say a 4 seat small trunk car. with  a catalytic converter. It has a max number say 100 miles to a gallon vs the 'normal' 40 you can get.

but it needs to be made of all carbon fiber and have special governors and yada yada yada. So we settle on a honda that does 33-40 miles to a gallon.

Same for a mining gear.

lets say 11 watts to a th but down clocked with chips spread out.

or solar array with a government subsidy like they gave to coal and oil and gas since 1900.

Still doubt they do that but one can help.

That is wy we hedge carbon based and solar based mining for us.

[joker_josue]

we have both solar and carbon based mining in NJ and PA

@mikey other than various governments giving incentives for solar/wind mining . We are pretty much near max they will allow for carbon based mining. I feel the NY law which is a 2 year trial run is testing the waters of forcing or incentivizing miners to build arrays to mine.

And the max efficiency is kind of like how many miles to a gallon gas can a car do.

You don't want a tiny vehicle say a 4 seat small trunk car. with  a catalytic converter. It has a max number say 100 miles to a gallon vs the 'normal' 40 you can get.

but it needs to be made of all carbon fiber and have special governors and yada yada yada. So we settle on a honda that does 33-40 miles to a gallon.

Same for a mining gear.

lets say 11 watts to a th but down clocked with chips spread out.

or solar array with a government subsidy like they gave to coal and oil and gas since 1900.

Still doubt they do that but one can help.

That is wy we hedge carbon based and solar based mining for us.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Indeed, the mix between carbon and solar energy seems to be the most balanced at the moment.

In NJ and PA, are you thinking of following the same idea as in NY or not?
Do government authorities deal well with miners or do they tend to make life difficult?

[Maslate]

The impact is very small because if they still find mining profitable, they will find a way to use renewable energy or comply with New York state law. There's a good reason why the law was created, and they saw the impact of energy once more miners will expand or get in to this business.