Early returns on the Sooner State's big bet on cryptocurrency are in, and they're distinctly pro-business.
What's happening?
A bitcoin mining site is so happy with its arrangement in Muskogee that it is doubling its footprint, KOKH Fox 25 reported in November, shortly after the state's so-called "Bitcoin Bill of Rights" took effect. Polaris Technologies, Inc. already operates about 40,000 computers on a 42-acre property at John T. Griffin Industrial Park.
Area residents, however, aren't so happy.
The mining facility uses 200 megawatts of power, and it will soon consume as much power as 400,000 homes, after expansion. Oklahoma Gas and Electric built a 1,000-megawatt substation onsite as part of a bid to attract such data centers.
Polaris spent $100 million on its initial development, which was to bring about 20 jobs to the area, 2 News Oklahoma reported last year. The city and county spent more than $4 million to improve infrastructure in the area and facilitate such projects.
While there have been benefits, the facility has shaken some people in a quiet community, with the 20 jobs in the area not necessarily placating them in exchange for high power draws and loud noises.
"You can hear it in the mornings when they turn it on," Muskogee resident Joe Wilson told KOKH. "It sounds like a dishwasher going off. If more starts going in, especially like that back there, I think it's time to move."
Why is this important?
Another neighbor finds the noise pollution most problematic at night, though others said it wasn't bothersome.
"I don't really know how to describe it," someone told KOKH. "It's not overly loud, it's just there. It's annoying. It used to be really quiet out here and now it's not."
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Heck yes! 💯 The experience is similar to one not 300 miles away in Granbury, Texas, where residents sued Marathon Digital Holdings (which has changed its name to MARA Holdings) for noise pollution that disrupted their lives and caused health concerns. Various countries and other governments have banned certain crypto-mining activities because of their outsize impact on the environment, though adherents argue the industry can help in the green transition.
Oklahoma House Bill 3594 prevents any state government entity from enacting a noise ordinance to regulate a digital asset mining business beyond what applies to "industrial zoned areas generally."
Polaris chief technical officer Jiaxin Ning told KOKH that the company will build a wall or noise cancellation fence if residents are still unhappy when its expansion project is complete.
Is anything being done about cryptocurrency energy usage?
The state's embrace of crypto miners allowed for the expansion, and Polaris plans to build another facility near the Texas border, according to KOKH. Port Muskogee also hopes to attract similar tech operations, from other crypto companies to cloud computing and artificial intelligence businesses.
"We are providing the same structure, right, the infrastructure, the bones as what we would any industry in the state," state Rep. Brian Hill, who co-authored the bill, told KOKH. "We want this industry to know Oklahoma is open for business, we appreciate that you are choosing Oklahoma as your home and this is a place that you can thrive."
While this Polaris crypto facility in Oklahoma uses the local grid for energy and the one nearby in Texas relies at least in part on a gas-fired plant, meaning a significant amount of pollution is associated with the energy use, not all crypto mining operations are as polluting.
Cryptocurrency advocates often point to the fact that many companies similar to Polaris are building or purchasing their own renewable energy infrastructure off the grid, such as a large wind farm recently purchased elsewhere in Texas by MARA Holdings to operate another bitcoin mining facility.
That purchase did take that wind farm off the local grid, however, so while it's still better than running on the grid or building a dedicated natural gas plant, it doesn't improve the net energy usage equation in the short term. Further investments in renewable energy from the ground up will continue to be important for the future of cryptocurrency mining — and as Muskogee will attest to, so too will be further investments in noise reduction.
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