Good News Entrepreneurs: Plattsburgh Finally Lifts its Ban on Crypto Mining

By Kapil Gauhar

Plattsburgh, NY, the first city in the US to ban cryptocurrency mining, has finally lifted its one-year-long block on crypto mining operations.

Implemented in March 2018, the ban was put in place to buy the City of Plattsburgh enough time of 18 months to solve the issues associated with virtual-mining operations. Hearing the news, the CEO of Zafra, LLC, Ryan Brienza, seems to be all excited about it.

Thursday was a good night for Ryan Brienza.

Ryan Brienza expressed –

“I’m excited! I was surprised (the ban) was going to get lifted. It’s just taken a while, but I’m glad it happened.”

The Plattsburgh Entrepreneur eventually feels positive about expanding his cryptocurrency business. Brienza said,

“We’re going to be looking at expanding it. (We’re not) sure (if we’ll expand) at the same building, or maybe (consider) some other locations. We have some in mind so we’re going to be figuring that all out tomorrow.”

Well, he can do so after getting a 5-1 vote by the Plattsburgh City Council, that lifted its ban on crypto mining on Thursday night.

The reason behind putting the ban in place was to protect the taxpayers from having to foot the bill, in case the city were to go over its hydropower threshold and buy more expensive power.

Crypto miners expressed their gratitude towards the city’s cheap hydropower rates since they require more power to run their computers 24*7 in order to unlock the digital currency, Bitcoin.

Plattsburgh Mayor, Colin Read, said –

“We need to be more conscious of our electric energy usage and use it in more responsible ways.”

The new law on the matter reads that if the municipality exceeds its hydropower threshold and cryptocurrency miners are the reason for more power needed to be purchased off the grid, then they will have to pay for more expensive power. Also, they will be required to recycle 70% of the heat generated from their computers.

And, this is something Brienza seems to be already working on.

Brienza said –

“We’re actually working on another side project that’s kind of a prototype in another town at the moment that hopefully, we can bring to Plattsburgh. (It) actually creates a lot of other jobs associated with (cryptocurrency) mining, using the excess heat for some other stuff.”

“This is something community should be excited about,” he said.

“I just hope that they’ll actually see the benefit that (cryptocurrency mining) will bring to Plattsburgh.”