Ghost town in Canada to be Used for Crypto Mining

By Ravindra Chagetha

Ocean Falls, of the Central Coast county, a tiny town in the British Columbian hinterlands was mentioned in the introduction to a book in 1971, by an 11th grader named Greg Strebel. The town, now famous as “Ghost Town”, in 1966, had a mill that was manufacturing newsprint, rotoprint, kraft wrapping, tissue, and specialty papers town was shut down because of the Economic conditions imposed hardships and production was gradually decreased until March 1973 when the mill was closed. The town has a new buzz, the air around the town is having a new smell of Bitcoin. In the recent news, the Bitcoin mine has come to Ocean Falls after almost four decades of mill failure.

The world has realized what crypto has to offer, no one likes to be controlled, the word ‘democracy‘ has been given a new definition by the introduction of crypto. There is no need for centralized institutions to validate transactions. Central institutions inevitably lead to power accumulation and more and more control. Crypto had brought a new revolution into the world of economics and also has again proved to benefit the society. With the need to support the crypto industry, crypto mining has brought the town to a new life and hope.

The dam that powered the wood mill is still capable of producing about 13 megawatts of electricity. The power is shared to run Ocean Falls and two nearby towns, Bella Bella and Shearwater. The powerhouse dam, which is now the only tourist attraction the town is left with, gives less than one-third of the electricity, leaving plenty to support new industrial uses. The dam wasn’t connected to the grid, which seems to be an opportunity that can be an advantage to the crypto mining industry. The town is accessible with a plane or boat only and is 300 miles up the coast from Vancouver.

Since the rise in the price of Bitcoin, mining migrated from PCs to data centers occupied with specialized hardware and hungry for enough electricity to power whole towns. China has been the biggest location for Bitcoin miners, where the coal-powered data centers cranked away in such places as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang. But the challenges of doing business in China pressurized crypto players to look for other locations. The places with cool weather, stable governments, and ample hydroelectricity are the best locations, a form of power that lets miners avoid awkward questions about whether computational busywork justifies significant carbon emissions. Bitcoin mining took hold in Scandinavian countries, as well as parts of Canada and the northern U.S.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rely on a decentralized network of computers to confirm transactions, rewarding people who do the work with new coins in a process known as mining. Basically, mining is the pure conversion of electricity into money. With the spare hydroelectricity produced from the dam, the future of the town seems bright as it is more economical and is promising for the crypto miners to plant the industry to reach their optimum and simultaneously giving hopes to the silent town.

 

Ravindra Chagetha

His interests and the desire to learn something new cannot be neglected as he is always keen to learn new things.

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