In the middle of rural Texas, a cryptocurrency mine is currently under construction. The bitcoin hashrate – the processing power used to produce bitcoin – halved after the crackdown. Riot Blockchain recently acquired Whinstone US, the largest bitcoin mining facility in the US based in Rockdale, Texas, for $80m. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, halted his company’s acceptance of bitcoin transactions, citing the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel”. But we just don’t know what the future of bitcoin mining is,” Brendle said.

Source: The Guardian August 17, 2021 09:00 UTC