Note that the idea of banning cryptocurrency mining now sounds rather strange. As the Bitcoin Mining Council report revealed the day before, the share of renewable electricity used by Bitcoin miners has increased by 59 percent since last year. Consequently, more and more computing equipment is using green electricity, which does not harm the planet.

Despite this, officials continue to treat mining as a bad thing, even though the scale of the niche is inherently insufficient for any serious consequences.

If anything, coins can be mined - including with a single video card - on the 2Miners pool. It has over 167,000 miners, easy-to-follow set-up guides, and an abundance of supported coins.

Why cryptocurrency mining is banned

The bill’s author and Assembly member Anna Kelles commented on her Twitter account with the following quote

Thrilled that my bill just passed in the Assembly as part of the Earth Day package!

One of the most popular user responses to this post was the following tweet.

Congratulations on that, seriously. The miners will simply move to other states that really need their businesses. Well New York will once again shoot itself in the foot.
That’s not good for the state. Especially after many businesses have already left New York because of its authoritarian measures in the wake of Covid.

According to Decrypt’s sources, voting for the new law does not mean that Bitcoin mining businesses in the state will cease to exist altogether. However, the moratorium will indeed be a serious restriction on the development of local mining companies. Here, for example, is a quote from a document on the subject.

The Department of Public Services must not approve a new application or issue a new permit for an electricity generating company that uses carbon-based fuels and provides, in whole or in part, electricity to cryptocurrency mining operations.

Bitcoin network hash rate

Read also: Russia may start developing state-level cryptocurrency mining to circumvent sanctions: IMF forecast.

The text of the bill specifies that the moratorium will apply to those companies that mine cryptocurrencies based on Proof-of-Work, that is, Proof of Work. This makes sense, as this is the algorithm used in Bitcoin and is the “main culprit” behind the ever-increasing energy consumption of the coin’s network.

We checked the actual data: in the last week, Bitcoin's network hash rate reached a record 263 hashes per second twice. This means that the cryptocurrency is now mined by the maximum number of users.

Bitcoin network hash rate graph

The bill also states that the Department of the Environment will prepare an environmental impact assessment of “mining operations that use Proof-of-Work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions”. This assessment will include the number of mining centres in the state, their electricity consumption, sources of this resource, emissions of negative substances into the atmosphere, water consumption and overall impact on public health.

Energy consumption of the Bitcoin network

Before all this can begin, the bill must pass the New York State Senate with the approval of its members. The document will then go to Governor Kathy Hochul for her signature or veto if passed.


We believe that the negative impact of Bitcoin mining on the environment is a negative trend that is out of control. Yes, cryptocurrency mining does use more electricity than some countries, but this is negligible compared to areas like construction and other human activities. On top of that, BTC mining - especially in the US - is getting greener now. So hopefully in the future there will be no obstacles for miners around the world to earn bitcoins and at the same time secure that network.

Follow the developments in our millionaires’ cryptochat. There we will discuss news about mining and other components of the digital asset world.