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Residents in a North Carolina Appalachian town say they’re being forced to leave their homes due to a noisy cryptocurrency mine that has drawn petitions and protests.
The facility in Murphy, one of two in Cherokee County, has consistently made a sound that resident Mike Lugiewicz describes as ‘a small jet that never leaves.’ In September, one mine was described as ‘more costly than beef production.’
Sound meters run by Lugiewicz out of his yard showed the ceaseless noise of the stacks of computer servers and cooling fans scoring from 55 to 85 decibels.
‘There’s a racetrack three miles out right here,’ Lugiewicz said. ‘You can hear the cars running. It’s cool.’
‘But at least they stop,’ neighbor Judy Stines added to CNN. ‘And you can go to bed.’
Residents in a North Carolina Appalachian town say they’re being forced to leave their homes due to a noisy cryptocurrency mine that has drawn petitions and protests
Bans on crypto by places like China have led those looking to harvest searching for locations along Appalachia, as power is relatively affordable and regulation is usually non-existent in those areas.
A company called PrimeBlock has bought a dozen mines across North Carolina, as well as in Tennessee and Kentucky.
The company – based out of San Francisco – has garnered about $300million in equity financing and is likely to go public soon.
Despite a largely Republican and Libertarian base, the noise has forced residents to demand their local government do something about it, with the Board of Commissioners recently asking state and federal officials to regulate crypto mining.
‘I personally think that if we can get a bill into the system, other (North Carolina) counties will join,’ Chairman Cal Stiles said.
Chandler Song, PrimeBlock Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, said that such regulation would be ‘unconstitutional, to say the least’ and said of the locales: ‘Oh boy, they wanted us so bad a year ago.’
There were plans for representatives from PrimeBlock to speak at a Cherokee County Board meeting, but County Commission Chair Dan Eichenbaum said that they decided not to come because someone shot at one of the service lines.
Resident Mike Lugiewicz (pictured left) describes the noise as like ‘a small jet that never leaves’
Bans on crypto by places like China have led those looking to harvest searching for locations along Appalachia, as power is relatively affordable and regulation is usually non-existent in those areas
Song has since said that he hasn’t heard any complaints from the county but promised PrimeBlock would build noise insulation walls and install water-based cooling systems that made a sound, the Washington Post reported.
They did, but only on two sides of the mine before construction stopped, only making residents angrier.
Both Song and co-founder Ryan Fang were featured in a 2017 Forbes list of young entrepreneurs who were able to raise over $10million in funding for projects.
PrimeBlock claimed nearly $25million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 and an estimated enterprise value of $1.25billion.
Despite a largely Republican and Libertarian base, the noise has forced residents to demand their local government do something about it, with the Board of Commissioners (pictured) recently asking state and federal officials to regulate crypto mining
Chandler Song, PrimeBlock Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, said that such regulation would be ‘unconstitutional, to say the least’ and said of the locales: ‘Oh boy, they wanted us so bad a year ago’
Song has yet to respond to any follow-up questions. DailyMail.com has reached out to a spokesperson for PrimeBlock for comment.
The mines, along with winter storms, have been blamed for rolling blackouts in power grids built by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which have rarely happened in the New Deal-era program’s history. The mine never shut down.
‘They shut us down on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day every hour for anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes to an hour,’ resident Ron Wright said. ‘Well, once your power goes down, your heat pumps go off and pipes freeze.’
Lugiewicz and Stines are still fighting, but Lugiewicz has attached a for sale sign to his home.
‘September of 2021, I think, is when they turned this on and my wife and I just shook our heads, said, ‘No, we’re out of here.’
Despite promises PrimeBlock would build noise insulation walls and install water-based cooling systems that made a sound, they only built them on two sides of the mine before construction stopped, only making residents angrier
The mines, along with winter storms, have been blamed for rolling blackouts in power grids built by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which have rarely happened in the New Deal-era program’s history. The mine never shut down
The Murphy facility made waves all the way in neighboring Clay County, which enacted a ban on commercial crypto mining last August.
‘Regarding environmental impacts, the board found that cryptocurrency mining contributes to climate change, noise pollution, environmental devastation, immense quantities of energy used including, but not limited to electrical energy,’ the ordinance states.
County Commissioner Clay Logan told the Clay County Progress it was ‘just good common sense.’
Both Change.org and the Sierra Club have launched petitions against the mines.
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