A former facilities worker who allegedly set up a secret cryptocurrency mining operation inside a Massachusetts school’s crawl space is due for arrest after missing a scheduled court hearing to answer to charges. Nadeam Nahas was scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 23 facing charges of vandalizing a school and fraudulent use of electricity, according to media reports. JUST IN: an ex-town employee is accused of running a "Cryptocurrency mining operation" out of Cohasset High School. pic.twitter.com/cdBlMIxnnH — whalechart (@WhaleChart) February 24, 2023 A default warrant is a type if warrant issued by courts when a person fails to appear …

Bitcoin mining (BTC) is the process of adding transactions to the Bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions. Miners use powerful computers to solve complex mathematical puzzles, known as proof-of-work (PoW), to validate transactions and add them to the blockchain. In return, miners receive newly minted BTC as a reward for their work. The process of mining Bitcoin involves solving a complex mathematical puzzle, known as a hash, using specialized software and hardware. The miner that solves the puzzle first is rewarded with new BTC, as well as the transaction fees associated with the transactions included in …

A state-owned electric utility provider in the Canadian province of British Columbia is set to halt all new electricity-connection requests from cryptocurrency miners for a period of 18 months. The British Columbia government made the announcement in a statement on Dec. 21 stating that the pause will allow the government and BC Hydro to develop a permanent framework that can better balance the needs of crypto miners and both its residents and businesses in the region. Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said that the move was made to preserve the clean energy it provides for …

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has reportedly opened a formal investigation into two proposed contracts that would offer discounted electricity prices to new crypto-mining operations. According to a Dec. 5 statement from environmental law group Earthjustice, the government department would be looking to determine whether subsidizing crypto mining operations will raise electricity costs for Kentucky residents. The two mining contracts under investigation include one between Kentucky Power and Ebon International LLC, which runs a 250-megawatt mining facility in Louisa, as well as mining company Bitki-KY, which operates a 13-megawatt facility in Waverly, Kentucky. The contract proposes to give discounted …

Bitcoin (BTC) miner Core Scientific has warned of “substantial doubt” they will be able to continue operations over the next 12 months given financial uncertainty. In its quarterly report filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 22, the firm indicated it had accrued a net loss of $434.8 million over the third quarter of 2022. After net losses of $862 million in the second quarter, its total net losses for 2022 are sitting at $1.71 billion. The company suggested in order to continue its operations through to November 2023, it will require additional liquidity, adding …

Hydro-Québec, the firm managing electricity across the Canadian province of Quebec, plans to reallocate energy supplied to crypto mining firms. According to a Nov. 3 tweet from Canadian lawmaker Pierre Fitzgibbon, the government will request a decree from the energy board to release the company from its obligation to power crypto miners in the province. Hydro-Québec allocated 270 megawatts toward the mining firms, but electricity demand in Québec is expected to grow to a point that powering crypto will put pressure on the energy supplier. The report Hydro-Québec filed with the government’s energy board on Nov. 1 said temporarily reducing …

Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, the finance minister of Norway, has suggested the government abolish a scheme which allows crypto data centers to pay a reduced rate on electricity. In an Oct. 6 announcement, the government of Norway proposed that data centers operating in the country be subject to the same electricity tax rates as other industries, representing a potential change in policy for Bitcoin (BTC) miners. According to the government, the reduced rate should be phased out as the demand for electricity was rising in certain areas. “We are in a completely different situation in the power market now than when …

The electricity mix of Bitcoin (BTC) has drastically changed over the past few years, with nuclear energy and natural gas becoming the fastest growing energy sources powering Bitcoin mining, according to new data. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) on Tuesday released a major update to its Bitcoin mining-dedicated data source, the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI). According to the data from Cambridge, fossil fuels like coal and natural gas made up almost two-thirds of Bitcoin’s total electricity mix as of January 2022, accounting for more than 62%. As such, the share of sustainable energy sources in the …

Bitcoin (BTC) mining hardware and hosting company Compass Mining has lost one of its Maine-based hosting facilities after the owner, Dynamics Mining, terminated the hosting agreement between the two, claiming Compass failed to pay the required bills. Late on Sunday, Dynamics tweeted a letter on Twitter it sent to Compass Mining which stated as of June 14th, the hosting contract between the two was terminated. Dynamics alleged Compass has six late payments and three non-payments related to utility bills and hosting fees. Effective June 14th @compass_mining facility hosting agreement in Maine was terminated by @dynamics2k for failure to pay power …

The overall power consumption of the Bitcoin (BTC) network recorded a drastic drop after mimicking the two-week-long fall in the mining hash rate, which reduced the commuting power for mining BTC blocks to 199.225 exahash per second (EH/s). According to the data shared by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the Bitcoin network recorded the year 2022’s lowest power demand of 10.65 gigawatts (GW). At its peak, the BTC network demanded 16.09 GW of power. On June 16, a Cointelegraph report highlighted how the banking sector utilizes 56 times more energy than the Bitcoin ecosystem. Publisher Michel Khazzaka, an IT …

The Russian government continues to establish links with major players in the cryptocurrency mining industry despite staying skeptical about legalizing cryptocurrency trading and payments. Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom Neft has entered into a partnership with BitRiver, the largest crypto-mining colocation services supplier in Russia providing hosting services for major crypto mining operations. Gazprom will provide BitRiver's partner data centers with electricity generated from the associated petroleum gas, the companies officially announced on June 16. As part of the collaboration, BitRiver will be developing a digital infrastructure based on the oil fields that Gazprom provides crypto mining services from the …

The ever-raging debate around Bitcoin’s energy consumption has been re-ignited, with founding member of Ethereum Anthony Donofrio claiming that Bitcoin is using “way too much” energy. According to figures from Digiconomist, Bitcoin (BTC) currently uses 0.82% of the world’s power while Ethereum (ETH) uses 0.34%. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake posted the figures to his 56,000 followers that Donofrio retweeted, stating: If bitcoin is really using nearly 1% of the energy on earth that is way too much for a pet rock. https://t.co/CDL32jk5FF — Texture, PhD (@iamtexture) June 9, 2022 Ethereum proponents are attempting to take shots at Bitcoin while simultaneously …