In a remote town in North Carolina, many residents that have spent the last several years there are complaining about noise… Noise they say is on par with a dozen jets flying over their homes. There aren’t any planes or jets. Rather, the noise is coming from a series of crypto mining rigs set up by Prime Block, a mining enterprise based in San Francisco.
Mining Noise Is Hurting Residents
The noise appears to occur on a regular basis, with many residents saying it goes seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Several of these rigs are set up in small huts at the base of what’s known as Poor House Mountain, and while some of the folks living there are situated several miles away, they can still hear the mining rigs.
Mike Lugiewicz is one of the unlucky people who lives close to the mining facility. Less than 100 yards away, he says the sounds are quite irritating and are on the verge of driving him to madness. He stated in a recent interview:
It’s like living on top of Niagara Falls. When it’s at its worst, it’s like sitting on the tarmac with a jet engine in front of you, but the jet never leaves. The jet never takes off. It’s just annoying. It’s just a constant annoyance.
Mining is the only way to extract new units of crypto and add them to the blockchain. Without mining, there is no digital currency industry, but that hasn’t stopped people from finding reasons to hate it, the noise of the mining rigs being a big one. The other is the idea that crypto mining somehow uses more energy than many developing countries, and thus puts the future of the planet in jeopardy.
America is one of the few regions of the world that has no noise ordinances when it comes to crypto mining. While one exists for the North Carolina town where the mining rigs are set up, residents affirm that it has nothing to do with crypto activities, and even then, it’s very loosely and lazily enforced.
Not That Big of a Deal?
Chandler Song is the co-founder and co-owner of Prime Block. Serving as the company’s chief innovation officer, he stated that county officials have yet to bring up any complaints regarding the noise. He has even visited the facility to see what residents are so upset about. He stated:
I have been to the site many times during construction. About 200 yards from the site, we stood in front of the house to check noise levels. It sounds like an air-conditioning unit in the yard. Every night, it was like air conditioning.
Despite all this, he’s willing to give residents the benefit of the doubt. He’s now working to build noise insulation walls. He’s also said the company will be installing quieter cooling systems.
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