Dialogue: What Readers Thought About Bitcoin Miners Flocking to Oregon

"This world will burn before these madmen figure it out.”

Terrence Thurber brought his Bitcoin mining operation to The Dalles in 2014. "If you could give me a great strategy game, a couple growlers of good craft beer and a weekend with my dogs,” he says, "I'd be pretty content." (Christine Dong)
By WW Staff

Last week, WW wrote about Bitcoin miners eyeing Oregon's cheap hydroelectric power. One cryptocurrency mine in The Dalles uses enough energy to power the town of Sisters, and critics say that energy has an environmental cost. Here's what our readers had to say.

Jay Gaddy, via Facebook: "This is insanity, pure unmitigated speculative insanity. This world will burn before these madmen figure it out."

International Rivers, via Twitter: "Bitcoin continues its river-destroying ways—now in the U.S."

Steve Tait, via Facebook: "Tax them like crazy. Every kilowatt-hour they use will ultimately increase the cost of producing electricity for the Northwest. Stop the giveaway."

John Buss, via Facebook: "Are they paying their electric bill? Yes? Then they're all good! You know what the term for increasing your rates based on demand is, right? Price gouging. Most aren't OK with this in any other circumstance, why would this be different?"

Nick A. Zukin, via wweek.com: "So what is the alleged problem? It's basically just one more data center, like thousands upon thousands of other data centers across the country. Is it somehow 'less productive' if his clients are Bitcoin miners rather than fashion bloggers?"

Tomescu Mohr, via Facebook: "This is not OK. These are not the people who paid for building the dam and rolling out the electric grid and everything else related. This is the monopolization of semi-socialized shared resources intended to boost economic gain for all of us, not to be squandered by some greedy parasite."

Billy Belson, via Facebook: "Bitcoin is a fundamentally valueless scam that has sucked real value out of the economy into a nebulous ether that does no work and provides no resources. There's never a good time for such a thing to exist, but now is the worst time ever for it. Bitcoin needs to be shut down and voided, never encouraged."

Thedeadtext, via wweek.com: "It sort of shows you how mind-bogglingly stupid we are as a species to allow this completely and utterly useless consumption of energy to occur."

Spindles, via wweek.com: "What a waste of electricity. I prefer the good ol' fashioned monopolistic printing of endless free fiat for the military industrial complex and stock market to waste with abandon."

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