The city and the hills of Albany hold a kind of weather all their own, a wind that smells of old coffee and fresh receipts. They say the lights are too bright in a way that makes good folks swallow hard, so they press a new kind of tax on the noisy machines that mine the earth’s quiet metal, cryptocurrency, as if counting the sparks could somehow lighten the burden on the street.
State Senator Liz Krueger and Assemblymember Anna Kelles rolled the idea out on October 1, a bill that would tax mining outfits by the year’s tally of power. The money would slip into the state’s Energy Affordability Programs, meant to ease the weight on households and small businesses that already breathe through straw-thin budgets. A measure born of electricity and stubborn resolve, with perhaps a hint of sarcasm from the weathered gentleman in the corner store.
How the tax works?
It’s a tiered tax, like a ladder creaking under somebody’s weight. Between 2.25 and 5 million kilowatt-hours, the rate is 2 cents per kWh. From 5 to 10 million, it climbs to 3 cents. From 10 to 20 million, 4 cents per kilowatt-hour. The giants, those burning more than 20 million kWh, pay 5 cents a kick, and yes, it could ring up a million dollars or more each year depending on their appetite for power. If the law passes, it would begin its slow march in 2027, like a mule that has learned a new rock and won’t let go.
Lawmakers say Bitcoin mining has been touching households to the tune of roughly $79 million a year and weighing down small businesses by about $165 million across New York. A price tag that glitters in the newspapers and sits heavy on the shoulder of someone balancing a grocery bag and a bill due notice.
In 2023, electricity costs crept along differently for different souls: households paying around 22.25 cents per kWh, commercial users at 18.01 cents, and industrial users at 6.87 cents. Facilities powered entirely by renewables and not hooked to the state grid would find themselves exempt, like a stubborn weed spared in a garden bed.
Rising mining costs
The tale arrives with numbers and fear. This year, the price to mine a single Bitcoin has stretched above $70,000, a number that makes even the bravest calculator blink. The fear is that higher taxes might make the grand, grid-filling mining ventures unviable, a large machine left to rust in the rain. The bill itself argues-perhaps with the dry humor of a man who has watched the dam hold and leak-that New Yorkers are shouldering higher bills because of unregulated proof-of-work crypto mining, and they get little to nothing in return, except a glow and a buzz in the night, and a lot of electricity bills.
Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and their kin rely on proof-of-work, a vast chorus of always-on computers guzzling energy. The consequence, they warn, could be environmental burdens: air, water, and e-waste joining the ledger in the air like old coins falling through a slot. And yes, other hungry beasts-AI and high-performance computing-also require heat and light, sometimes more than the coins themselves, a reminder that not all power is born equal, and some are hungry for the whole table. ⚡💸🤷♂️
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2025-10-03 12:24