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With Bitcoin (BTC) mining taking off in the U.S. and Canada after the collapse of China’s mining industry, some major players have made a costly miscalculation amid the gold rush. The industry is dominated by players like Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA), Riot Blockchain Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT), and Hut 8 Mining Corp. (NASDAQ: HUT), which have been deploying mining operations across North America.
When planning and building out operations, mining companies have much to think about. Finding the right equipment and personnel to monitor it, finding facilities that have the electrical infrastructure to power their machines, and access to electricity at low rates are just a few considerations that can make or break an operation.
Cheap electricity seems to be the chief concern when choosing a location. This has reportedly led some operations to forget about one thing: noise.
One application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) — advanced machines used to perform the calculations necessary for the Bitcoin network — operates at about 80 decibels, the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner. This is already noisy, but keep in mind that these facilities operate thousands of ASICs at a time, all of which run continuously day in, day out.
Some of these facilities have come under fire recently from the communities that surround them because of this annoyance. The noise pollution upset and distressed many neighbors.
One 74-year-old woman in Adel, Georgia, told The Wall Street Journal that she has to wear earplugs inside her own house because of a mining facility that was built near her house. She compared the noise to 1,000 hair dryers blowing in unison and said she no longer can sit on her porch.
Residents of towns near mining facilities are taking action and demanding that operators either reduce the noise – which requires lowering the amount of ASICs running at once, reducing the profitability of the operation – or move their operations out of town.
Bitfarms Ltd. (NASDAQ: BITF) (TSX.V: BITF) is required to relocate an entire operation after reaching an agreement with the town of Sherbrooke, Quebec. Residents demanded the company leave after the noise became unbearable. This is an expensive and costly hurdle for the company. And it is not alone. Many large-scale mining companies have facilities in areas with unhappy residents and may have to move or reduce operations.
OLB Group Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB) is reportedly one of the few companies that directly takes noise pollution into account. The company says it has purposefully located its operations in areas where noise will not be an issue for residents, such as their data center in an industrial park adjacent to the Bradford Regional Airport in Bradford, Pennsylvania.
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