{"id":21394,"date":"2022-06-30T02:37:46","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T02:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=21394"},"modified":"2022-06-30T02:37:46","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T02:37:46","slug":"chehalis-city-council-votes-to-implement-moratorium-on-cryptocurrency-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=21394","title":{"rendered":"Chehalis City Council Votes to Implement Moratorium on Cryptocurrency Mining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>By The Chronicle staff<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">On Monday night, the Chehalis City Council heard a presentation on cryptocurrency given by Justin Podhola, a cryptocurrency mining entrepreneur who started his company, Elite Mining Inc., in Chehalis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">The council later voted unanimously to adopt a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining in Chehalis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Podhola has been involved in cryptocurrency mining for eight years after investing all of his life savings, he said. After his presentation, Podhola answered questions about different aspects of the cryptocurrency business. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Podhola explained how in cryptocurrency, there are good and bad actors, listing those interested in performing illicit transactions as being the type of people he\u2019d consider bad actors. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cJust like anything else you gotta have regulation around it,\u201d Podhola said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Podhola told the city councilors cryptocurrency miners make money by selling the cryptocurrency they mine. Podhola\u2019s company mines Bitcoin in exchange for U.S. dollars. According to Podhola, Bitcoin, which was the first cryptocurrency created, is the best cryptocurrency because it developed organically. The amount of money a miner makes is determined by how much they contribute to the mining of a cryptocurrency. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cThe more power I contribute to the Bitcoin network, the more money I make,\u201d Podhola said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Podhola\u2019s company contributes to the Bitcoin network through computers his company has that work with other cryptocurrency miners to solve complex mathematical equations. The greater share your computers contribute to solving the equations, the greater share of the cryptocurrency the miner receives. The cryptocurrency mining process can be lucrative, but there are major problems, mainly high consumption of water and electricity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Podhola said he\u2019s already run into those problems. He told the council he purchased a building next to the current Washington State Employee Credit Union (WSECU) and PUD near Yard Birds but wasn\u2019t able to get enough power to meet his business needs. Podhola said he moved his company to Wyoming, though he still maintains operations in Chehalis at his location near WSECU as well as a more recent expanded operation in Yard Birds. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">The goal of the newly passed moratorium is to find a way to allow cryptocurrency mining companies to operate without having to worry about power blackouts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Asking about power usage, Councilor Isaac Pope used Microsoft as an example of another company that uses a lot of power to run computers and asked why cryptocurrency companies would be singled out. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">In response to Pope\u2019s question, Podhola explained the importance of the government working with cryptocurrency miners, particularly given the consistency of the power cryptocurrency mining uses. Podhola used Texas as an example to explain to the councilors how electricity prices can be set in a way so as to discourage cryptocurrency mining at certain times to prevent blackouts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Councilor Bob Spahr asked Podhola a question about the possibility of zoning disincentivizing cryptocurrency mining. Podhola answered by saying appropriate zoning that factored in water and power usage wouldn\u2019t discourage companies like his from engaging in cryptocurrency mining.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">After newly appointed Councilor Kevin Carns asked about the nature of Podhola\u2019s employment activities, Podhola said he employed a handful of workers in Chehalis who are paid around $20 to $30 an hour, adding he plans to expand his operations in Chehalis if allowed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Later during the meeting, after the council had finished hearing public comments, Spahr moved to vote on the cryptocurrency mining moratorium and was seconded by councilor Jerry Lord. The council then voted unanimously to adopt the moratorium.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)<br \/>\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?<br \/>\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};<br \/>\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=&#8217;2.0&#8242;;<br \/>\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;<br \/>\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];<br \/>\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,&#8217;script&#8217;,<br \/>\n    &#8216;https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js&#8217;);<br \/>\n    fbq(&#8216;init&#8217;, &#8216;965174314403450&#8217;);<br \/>\n    fbq(&#8216;track&#8217;, &#8216;PageView&#8217;);<br \/>\n  (function(d, s, id) {<br \/>\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];<br \/>\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) return;<br \/>\n      js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;<br \/>\n      js.src = &#8220;\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v2.8&amp;appId=1782340335416902&#8221;;<br \/>\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);<br \/>\n    }(document, &#8216;script&#8217;, &#8216;facebook-jssdk&#8217;));<br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chronline.com\/stories\/chehalis-city-council-votes-to-implement-moratorium-on-cryptocurrency-mining,296096?\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By The Chronicle staff On Monday night, the Chehalis City Council heard a presentation on cryptocurrency given by Justin Podhola, a cryptocurrency mining entrepreneur who started his company, Elite Mining Inc., in Chehalis. The council later voted unanimously to adopt a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining in Chehalis. Podhola has been involved in cryptocurrency mining for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[36],"tags":[9386,633,6080,52,5611,93,4371,7225],"class_list":["post-21394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-chehalis","tag-city","tag-council","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-implement","tag-mining","tag-moratorium","tag-votes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/20220629-164626-BIZ-CPT-BITCOIN-GET.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21396,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21394\/revisions\/21396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}