Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform the Internet of Things

Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform Internet of Things

The term “cryptocurrency” is a misnomer.

A common misconception, held by many newcomers to the blockchain world, is that the technology’s potential lies solely in the banking and financial industry. In fact, the recent suggestion of the Indian government to rename cryptocurrency as “crypto assets”, and Warren’s Buffett’s belief that Bitcoin is not in any way a currency, are perhaps closer to the true nature of cryptocurrency than the commonly held belief that it is simply digital money. Cryptocurrencies should not be seen as just money, but as tools. Blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrency, has potential in many more forms than just as a medium of exchange and store of value.

The application of this technology to industries as varied as supply chain management, fashion and publishing is a result of the innate flexibility of blockchain. The nature of a platform can be programmed to suit a variety of needs. The sooner an investor realizes this, the sooner they will see how exactly it might be applied to different industries, giving them a degree of clarity with can help them measure the potential of a project to disrupt a particular industry. Given the immense potential of blockchain, we take a look at industries, one at a time, that will be upended by its imminent commercial arrival. The shown here is as folows:

Internet of Things

Along with blockchain and artificial intelligence,

the Internet of Things is another technological development that is up and coming, with radically transformative effects. Essentially an internet connecting all devices, we are soon to live in a world where our smartphones can “talk” to our fridges and cars. Naturally, such a system is fraught with potential security and transactional problems. The amount of processing that will take place is also unprecedented. Yet again, the brilliance of blockchain technology can answer these problems.

With no central system necessary, blockchain would make this heavy processing much easier to handle while also securing data in an encrypted format. Tokenized mechanisms can monetize transactions between different devices and seamlessly integrate different services. Waltonchain and IOTA (which utilizes Directed Acyclic Graphs, not blockchain) are two of the big names in this niche. Combining RFID technology with blockchain and the Internet of Things to form what they call the “Value Internet of Things”, Waltonchain believes that a new business system will evolve where logistics, manufacturing, retail and infrastructure can share data securely. Because of RFID technology, the system will also feature product traceability and asset ownership.

IOTA is shaping up to be a practical, feasible way for machines to communicate with each other. The best way to describe the project is through a potential scenario: imagine driving a car registered on the IOTA network through a toll booth. As you pass through the toll, the car communicates with the toll and automatically makes the transfer. We live in a world that is increasingly dependent on machines, so you can imagine the potential of a system that automatically executes those dependencies. Hurify is another project in the IoT space that aims to accelerate the growth of the industry. The platform allows developers to find IoT development jobs and improve their skill set more easily. Clients can find the right talent for their IoT projects and lower their overall costs. Samsung and IBM are also working together to this end, on a blockchain initiative called ADEPT.

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

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Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform the Internet of Things

Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform Supply Chain Management

The term “cryptocurrency” is a misnomer.

A common misconception, held by many newcomers to the blockchain world, is that the technology’s potential lies solely in the banking and financial industry. In fact, the recent suggestion of the Indian government to rename cryptocurrency as “crypto assets”, and Warren’s Buffett’s belief that Bitcoin is not in any way a currency, are perhaps closer to the true nature of cryptocurrency than the commonly held belief that it is simply digital money. Cryptocurrencies should not be seen as just money, but as tools. Blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrency, has potential in many more forms than just as a medium of exchange and store of value.

The application of this technology to industries as varied as supply chain management, fashion and publishing is a result of the innate flexibility of blockchain. The nature of a platform can be programmed to suit a variety of needs. The sooner an investor realizes this, the sooner they will see how exactly it might be applied to different industries, giving them a degree of clarity with can help them measure the potential of a project to disrupt a particular industry. Given the immense potential of blockchain, we take a look at industries, one at a time, that will be upended by its imminent commercial arrival. The shown here is as folows:

Supply Chain Management

The supply chain industry is one fraught with many challenges,

most of which are concerned with curtailing rising costs and efficiently supplying products to retailers and customers. It is valued in the hundreds of billion dollars worldwide and is set to grow as demand increases proportionally with spending power. However, the industry faces several intractable obstacles. Fuel costs are ever on the rise, which makes transportation an increasingly expensive activity. Overproduction of products wastes precious resources like water and electricity, as well as taking up space and eventually becoming harmful waste. It is an industry whose challenges affect our very planet.

Smart contracts offer a potential solution to this problem. Imagine if an industry as significant as the automobile industry utilized a system in which cars would be manufactured only when a fixed number of requests were received.  With smart contracts, it is possible for funds to be locked into a contract, whereupon manufacturers would begin production only after a certain number has been reached. It would eliminate the worry of overestimating demand and resource consumption, and could also eliminate middlemen by directly connecting consumers with  manufacturers.

VeChain and ShipChain are two blockchain projects that want to transform this industry. VeChain aims to establish a business ecosystem that is autonomous and self-circulating. The use of NFC chips to counter theft and fraud has been popular with markets like liquor and tobacco, and they have partnered with China’s National Research Consulting Center (NRCC) to this end. They also show interest in automobiles, retail, agriculture, logistics and food/drugs.

ShipChain is also striving for the same goals with its platform, with its solution of “track and trace” being implemented from end to end on shipping and logistics. This will let small carriers operate independently and shift reliance away from larger, better-financed shipping parties. ShipChain is also incentivizing operators by rewarding them for efficient transport routes and timely deliveries.

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

Please click either Link to learn more about Bitcoin.
Interested or have Questions, Call Me, 559-474-4614

Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform Supply Chain Management

Industries That Blockchain Will

Radically Transform Healthcare

The term “cryptocurrency” is a misnomer. A common misconception,

held by many newcomers to the blockchain world, is that the technology’s potential lies solely in the banking and financial industry. In fact, the recent suggestion of the Indian government to rename cryptocurrency as “crypto assets”, and Warren’s Buffett’s belief that Bitcoin is not in any way a currency, are perhaps closer to the true nature of cryptocurrency than the commonly held belief that it is simply digital money. Cryptocurrencies should not be seen as just money, but as tools. Blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrency, has potential in many more forms than just as a medium of exchange and store of value.

The application of this technology to industries as varied as supply chain management, fashion and publishing is a result of the innate flexibility of blockchain. The nature of a platform can be programmed to suit a variety of needs. The sooner an investor realizes this, the sooner they will see how exactly it might be applied to different industries, giving them a degree of clarity with can help them measure the potential of a project to disrupt a particular industry. Given the immense potential of blockchain, we take a look at industries, one at a time, that will be upended by its imminent commercial arrival. The shown here is as folows:

Healthcare

Healthcare is a pillar of any national economy.

In America, it contributes to a fifth of the national economy, which amounts to roughly $3.8 trillion. Unfortunately, the industry is difficult to modernizeon a large scale and is hindered by obsolete processes, legacy data management systems and outdated infrastructure.

Patient data is a crucial part of the medical industry. Secure storage and data access, which could protect and make efficient diagnosis, is possible with blockchain. There are possibilities for the healthcare industry to partner with tangential services of other industries, such as insurance. ICON (ICX) is working on creating an ecosystem where this kind of inter-industry collaboration can exist. The existence of legacy systems is especially noticeable in developing nations, which are many steps behind their developed counterparts. Blockchain could quickly bring these nations up to speed , rapidly modernizing their healthcare services, which would better patient healthcare and generate revenue.

Patientory, which raised over $7 million in 3 days in their ICO, aims to improve the healthcare space by offering a secure space for stakeholders to store and manage data. Their target audience is patients, providers and healthcare organizations. Patients can easily access their data and hand it over to providers, who may not have a complete history of the patient’s health but will be able to view notes from previous providers and organizations. The organizations benefit from cheaper, secure and efficacious record storage.

DokChain aims to provide cheaper and more efficient solutions to patient data processing. They are operating on a slightly larger scale, developing a platform for a broader range of industries including insurance. Gem and Tierion are two other blockchain projects working in the healthcare space.

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

Please click either Link to learn more about Bitcoin.
Interested or have Questions, Call Me, 559-474-4614

Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform Healthcare

Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform Publishing

The term “cryptocurrency” is a misnomer.

A common misconception, held by many newcomers to the blockchain world, is that the technology’s potential lies solely in the banking and financial industry. In fact, the recent suggestion of the Indian government to rename cryptocurrency as “crypto assets”, and Warren’s Buffett’s belief that Bitcoin is not in any way a currency, are perhaps closer to the true nature of cryptocurrency than the commonly held belief that it is simply digital money. Cryptocurrencies should not be seen as just money, but as tools. Blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrency, has potential in many more forms than just as a medium of exchange and store of value.

The application of this technology to industries as varied as supply chain management, fashion and publishing is a result of the innate flexibility of blockchain. The nature of a platform can be programmed to suit a variety of needs. The sooner an investor realizes this, the sooner they will see how exactly it might be applied to different industries, giving them a degree of clarity with can help them measure the potential of a project to disrupt a particular industry. Given the immense potential of blockchain, we take a look at 25 industries that will be upended by its imminent commercial arrival.

Publishing

An example of a rather unexpected application of blockchain,

the publishing industry too can benefit from decentralization. Today’s publishing industry is largely in the control of a small group of publishers. It can be difficult for a yet unrecognized writer to break into the industry, and their success is dictated by the whims and fancies of these publishers. Digital publishing and the internet has made it easier for writers but even then, the scale and recognition of traditional publishing is still lacking.

A platform like Authorship is set to overturn the current system, where influence is in the hands of publishers, by using a tokenized system that recognizes the work of any writer. Publishers can choose to digitally publish writers and print their books, should they feel convinced of their quality and should demand exist. The token system ensures that writers get their fair share of pay. Writers can also write and publish without the assistance of publishers. Translators will also receive payment and approval from publishers if they choose to translate a work. The lesson here is, in whatever industry financial mechanisms favor one party over the other, blockchain can come in to equalize the system and ensure that everyone gets their fair cut.

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

Please click either Link to learn more about Bitcoin.
Interested or have Questions, Call Me, 559-474-4614

Industries That Blockchain Will Radically Transform Publishing

Here's How to Calculate What's Working When You're Marketing on Lots of Channels

Determining which channel moved the customer to purchase is tricky when your marketing runs the gamut from Facebook ads to direct mail.

Long gone are the days of blindly spending marketing dollars

without a data first mindset to clearly calculate and prove you are driving a return on your marketing investment (your “ROMI”). This previously linked post demonstrates how to track your ROMI at the 30,000 foot view, based on your overall business revenues vs. costs, or at the unit level of an average transaction. But, if you want to really fine tune your efforts to maximize your ROMI, the best marketers turn to marketing attribution tools to help optimize marketing within every sub-channel of their business. Let me explain.

What is marketing attribution?

Your customers are interacting with your business in many ways. Let’s say you are a retailer, and one customer may be visiting your store, your website, your mobile app, your direct mail catalog, etc. Marketing attribution helps assign value to which of those channels (if not all) should get credit for the sale. So, when you go to calculate your ROMI for that business unit, you are fairly matching revenues with marketing costs.

Calculating attribution is hard.

The above makes it sound like marketing attribution is a relatively straight forward thing to calculate. It could be if the customer only visited one channel, but what happens when they concurrently visit multiple channels? The calculation becomes much harder.  Let’s say a customer receives a catalog in the mail, goes to the website to learn more, then purchases the product in the store. Which gets the credit? The answer: they all should get partial credit, and that is where marketing attribution tools come in to help you calculate that.

Which should get the most credit?

Determining who gets the most credit for a sale is the big debate. Should the first touch point get the most credit, since the transaction most likely started there? Or, should the last touch point get the most credit, as that is where the customer actually pulled out their credit card and purchased the product?

The arguments can clearly be made both ways (especially by the marketing managers in each of those respective departments). I tend to bias toward the first touch point (e.g., the catalog that arrived in the mail), to help me assess if I should keep spending on that specific tactic. But, oftentimes, I simply split the credit evenly between each channel that touched the customer during that sale cycle.

Marketing attribution tools

Many companies turn to sophisticated software packages to help them. Some of the more sophisticated tools are found in expensive enterprise grade solutions from Adobe and others. But, there are others that serve the SMB market, as well, including Bizable, Bright Funnel, LeadsRx, Looker, Track Maven, Active Demand, Tealium, ABM Analytics and Attribution, to name a few. You can learn more about those products from their websites, or the marketing attribution sections of software user review sites, like G2 Crowd or Capterra.

You can calculate it own your own.

Let’s say you spend $10,000 on a direct mail piece, and you get 100 of those people — 1 percent —  to buy a $200 product from you. Fifty purchase through your call center and 50 through your website. You know the website orders were tied to the direct mail piece, because the user needed to enter a unique promotion code to redeem the offer in the mailer. 

I would attribute 50 percent of the 50 web orders to the catalog and 50 percent of those web orders to the website, as they both equally played a role in the sale. So, the catalog gets credit for 75 orders ($15,000 in revenues) and the website gets credit for 25 orders ($5,000 in revenues) from this one campaign.

Then, you need to carry that logic through to expenses. You need to allocate 75 percent of the mailer costs ($7,500) to the catalog division and 25 percent ($2,500) to the website division. And, in reverse, if the website has costs to operate, let’s say $10 per transaction (or $250 in total web orders from the mailer), you need to add those costs to the catalog division’s total campaign costs. The call center costs of $25 per order (or $1,875 in total catalog orders) will be incurred entirely by the catalog division, as the call center was not used by the website orders.

So, totaling it all up from this campaign, the catalog had: $15,000 in revenue less $7,500 in mailer costs, less $1,875 in call center costs, less $250 in website costs. For a total profit of $5875 and a total ROMI of 2x (ignoring product costs). And, the website had:  $5,000 in revenue less $2,500 in mailer costs, less $750 in website costs, for a total profit of $1,750 and ROMI of 1.54x. Voila! Both divisions that participated in the sale, sharing in the sale credit in a fair and equitable way.

620Ptential pitfalls in your calculations.

There are many instances that create calculation challenges. For example, which gets credit for a repeat sale, the channel that began the customer relationship or the channel that got the repeat order? I bias the most recent channel, but give credit for the lifetime value calculations of the first channel.

What happens when the tracking data is incomplete and you are not sure who should get credit for the sale? In that case, allocate the untracked orders pro rata in the same percentages as the tracked orders. For example, if your website accounted for 50 percent of your clearly tracked orders, there is a good chance it represented 50 percent of your untracked orders, as well. So, add those untracked orders to each respective tracked channel. This is as much an art as it is a science, so it will take time to set your rules and optimize them over time.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Hopefully, you now better understand what marketing attribution is, and why it is so important to track:  it helps you to fine tune your ROMI calculations by marketing channel to make sure you are optimizing your marketing spend by channel. The better you understand your customer behaviors (e.g., touchpoints) with a customer-centric omni-channel mindset, the better you will be able to truly take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

Please click either Link to learn more about Marketing.
Interested or have Questions, Call Me, 559-474-4614

Here's How to Calculate What's Working When You're Marketing on Lots of Channels

This startup is creating the cultural cryptocurrency for museums and institutions

Cultural tourism is a big segment of the wider travel and tourism industry.

While large online players like TripAdvisor provide a huge amount of information for travellers about museums, landmarks, and historical sites, there is still a need for innovation in the space. For example, the EU has a working group for digitally capturing, preserving, and exploring cultural heritage through new technologies. Austrian startup Cultural Places believes it has an answer by bringing cultural heritage and blockchain technology together. It wants to reinvent every aspect of the cultural industry, from ticketing to fundraising.

At its core, Cultural Places is a social network for artists, curators, and patrons, built by Oroundo, whose founders developed the concept over the last three years, which is creating a cultural ecosystem connecting customers and suppliers. The first version of the app has already been deployed with more than 30 institutions and landmarks including the Stephansdom cathedral in Vienna and the Borobudur Buddhist temple in Indonesia. But now it is moving on to its next phase – the Cultural Coin. The token is the platform’s dedicated cryptocurrency for purchasing tickets to museums and theatres or supporting galleries and exhibitions. Cultural Places will be running an ICO to raise financing for further development and deployment of the platform. Long term, the founders envision Cultural Places as the go-to platform for discovering and booking trips.

Streamlining ticketing

Traditional ticket booking is dogged by high fees, sometimes up to 30 percent, not to mention the high levels of fraud and ticket touting on the secondary market. On Cultural Places, tickets are handled via smart contracts on Ethereum, which removes the need for intermediaries. Smart contracts also allow for sharing and reselling of tickets to avoid anyone being ripped off. Customers get reasonably priced tickets and artists know that their tickets are being sold to actual fans rather than ticket touts.

This has been a massive pain point for ticketing across numerous industries and several startups are trying to solve it with the blockchain but Cultural Places is one of the first to design a blockchain solution specifically for this industry.

Social network & crowdfunding

Cultural Places aims to be all-encompassing. It will be a social network for travellers and culture buffs where users can build connections with others that have similar interests and shop on marketplaces for physical and digital goods. The platform helps institutions to collect and analyse user data to refine and hone the content they share to users. Furthermore, this data will inform more precise advertising compared with other social networks. Cultural institutions, like museums, will be able to build offerings using Cultural Places’ API and receive payments using the Cultural Coin cryptocurrency. Beyond that, the platform allows institutions and bodies to digitally represent and spread awareness around their work.

All content in the app is created by the institutions themselves so it’s always up to date and accurate. Museums for example are already able to integrate beacon and NFC technology in their buildings with the app to act as a walking tour guide when you’re actually at the location. Furthermore, the crowdfunding feature will help cultural businesses and artists to raise funds in a transparent way amid an environment where cultural investments are under strain. Much like ticketing, the startup claims that the crowdfunding process will be more transparent for all parties. This may be contributing to the costs of running an exhibition or helping to fund an archaeological dig.

Lower costs for the user

Cultural Places promotes its model of transparency and lower fees compared to incumbents in the marketplace but its chief business model is still revenue from transactions like ticket booking. All purchases made on Cultural Places will incur a six percent fee. Of this, three percent goes to Cultural Places and other three percent is distributed across the community: One percent will be returned to the user in Cultural Coins as a sort of loyalty program. Another one percent of the transaction will be distributed to all Cultural Coin token holders as a reward for being part of the ecosystem. And a final one percent will be distributed to all institutions to encourage further participation.

The Cultural Coin

The company is holding an ICO for the Cultural Coin, which is supported by the digital marketing agency Digitalsunray. The  Cultural Coin is a utility token that will be operational across the platform, though payments will also be available in fiat.  In the sale, 1.5 billion coins will be generated, with 900 million (60 percent) of these coins being made public in the sale, concluding on April 5 with all unsold tokens being destroyed. 150 million coins (10 percent) will go into a stability pool; 30 million (two percent) will be reserved for a bug bounty program; 75 million (five percent) will be distributed among existing Oroundo shareholders; and 345 million (23 percent) will be held for other early stakeholders, team members, and advisors in the project.

The sale is taking place in five phases: a pre-ICO and four separate sale phases with the value of the coin going up at each phase. In the pre-ICO, the coins are valued at €0.015 and will then increase to €0.018, €0.021, and €0.024 before finishing at €0.030 on the final phase. Unlike many ICOs, the company has already launched a working product with iOS and Android versions of the app. The funds raised by the ICO will help further development of its blockchain features and growing its partner networks. It is working with startup Flashboys for the blockchain implementations. Flashboys is the creator of Wizzle and will list the Cultural Coin on its exchange. Cultural Places is also working with customer satisfaction rating company RateMyTate.  The startup will first integrate the blockchain ticketing system this year with a view to building out the payments and crowdfunding features in 2019.

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

Please click either Link to learn more about Bitcoin.
Interested or have Questions, Call Me, 559-474-4614

This startup is creating the cultural cryptocurrency for museums and institutions

Is Bitcoin a Waste of Electricity, or Something Worse?

 

Tom Pillsworth, right, whose company operates and maintains Bitcoin machines

located at a former paper warehouse in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Credit Jacob Hannah for The New York Times  WASHINGTON — A manufacturing start-up recently announced plans to move into a shuttered aluminum factory in upstate New York, taking advantage of abundant cheap electricity from the St. Lawrence River.

Instead of smelting aluminum, however, the company plans to turn that power into Bitcoins. Money is supposed to be a means of buying things. Now, the nation’s hottest investment is buying money. And the investment rush is raising questions about whether one reason for the slow pace of economic growth in recent years is that the nation is busy distracting itself. While Bitcoin mining may not be labor intensive, it diverts time, energy and capital from other, more productive activities that economists say could fuel faster growth.

“It appears that much of our evolving digital infrastructure is devoted to activities, like the proliferation of cybercoins, that are worse than frivolous,” said James McAndrews, the former head of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. By a wide range of measures, America has a productivity problem. The economy is growing slowly, and almost 20 percent of adults in their prime working years are neither working nor trying to find work. Americans who do have jobs are less likely to start their own companies. Even the most basic kind of production is in decline. Americans are having less sex and making fewer babies.

Some economists see evidence that people are playing video games instead of going to work, logging on instead of getting it on, and plowing a growing share of their time, capital and natural resources into virtual products like social media, games and the latest fad: virtual currencies. Bitcoin, the largest virtual currency, is a particularly voracious consumer of resources because new Bitcoins are distributed in a kind of lottery where each ticket is purchased with electricity.

Bitcoin miners compete for the coins by submitting answers to difficult math problems. Instead of solving the problems, miners use computers to submit a flood of guesses. This can be lucrative: Each Bitcoin is currently valued at about $10,550. Believers insist it is a worthwhile endeavor. They describe Bitcoin as a superior currency that will eventually come into wide use, and they predict even broader applications for blockchains, the digital bookkeeping method used to record ownership of Bitcoins and to verify transactions.

Currently, the average price of one Bitcoin is about $10,715, according to Blockchain.info, a news and data site.But Bitcoin remains so hard to use that a major Bitcoin conference in January had to stop accepting Bitcoin. It is, in practice, a speculative investment, like gold. And Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, said mining gold was a better use of resources, because even if it lost value, it could be used to fill teeth. “Once the Bitcoin power is burned, it is never coming back,” he said.

Colin L. Read, the mayor of Plattsburgh, N.Y., also sees it as a public nuisance. The city was guaranteed a fixed supply of cheap electricity as part of the construction of power-generating dams on the St. Lawrence in the 1950s. Bitcoin mining companies are plugging into that power supply like a swarm of hungry mosquitoes. Mr. Read said that Bitcoin mining now consumes about 10 percent of the city’s power, and that is forcing Plattsburgh to buy a growing amount of extra electricity on the open market, at rates up to 100 times higher than its base cost.

Mr. Read, who is also an economics professor, said he would rather sell the city’s supply of cheap power to companies employing large numbers of people. Mold-Rite Plastics, which makes bottle caps, also uses about 10 percent of the city’s power, but it employs about 200 people. The mining companies? “They hire a security guard,” he said. “And a guy who comes when something breaks.” David Bowman, who describes himself as Plattsburgh’s first Bitcoin miner — “I started a long time ago, around 2014,” he said — started with a handful of computers. Now he has 20 machines.

Mold-Rite Plastics, a maker of bottle caps in Plattsburgh, N.Y., uses the same amount of electricity as Bitcoin miners, but employs about 200 people. Credit Jacob Hannah for The New York Times Bitcoin companies have begun moving into space at an old paper mill in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Credit Jacob Hannah for The New York Times  A few years ago, he rented a room in an old paper warehouse, where he runs the specialized hard drives around the clock. They sit side-by-side on wire racks, fans whirring to dissipate the heat. About half a dozen other mining companies have since moved into the same building.

Mr. Bowman, who is from Plattsburgh, said he sympathizes with the mayor’s concerns. He is the only employee of his company, and he is presently a full-time medical student on the Caribbean island of Grenada. But Bitcoin mining paid his college tuition and it is paying for medical school. And he doesn’t see that Plattsburgh has better options. “The place needs all the jobs they can get,” he said, although his company employs no one beyond him. He does pay fees to an investor-owned company that operates and maintains the machines and has one employee.

Other governments also are grappling with the merits of virtual currencies. Enel, the largest European power company, said earlier this month it would not sell electricity to a virtual miner, citing environmental concerns. “Enel has undertaken a clear path toward decarbonization and sustainable development and sees the intensive use of energy dedicated to cryptocurrency mining as an unsustainable practice that does not fit with the business model it is pursuing,” the company, partly owned by the Italian government, said in a statement.

Some Bitcoin miners emphasize their reliance on renewable energy, but the energy they use might otherwise be put to other purposes. Consider the example of Quebec, one of the world’s largest producers of hydroelectric power. Local demand has flatlined, leading the province to consider exporting electricity to Massachusetts, which is seeking to increase the share of current power consumption generated by sustainable sources. But Quebec is now weighing that possibility alongside a wave of proposals from mining companies.

David Bowman owns a Bitcoin mining company called Plattsburgh BTC in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Credit Luvnish Karnani for The New York Times  Some American utilities, too, are hungry for new customers. Domestic demand for electricity is in decline as power-hungry industries, like aluminum smelting, have moved to other countries and households are increasingly using LED light bulbs. “They’re thankful that anyone still wants to use energy,” said Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, an Oregon energy consultancy. And plenty of places are hungry for jobs — even the relatively few jobs that virtual mining brings.

Massena, the town with the shuttered smelter, is about two hours from Plattsburgh. It also enjoys a guaranteed supply of cheap electricity, but it has lost several of its major employers, including the smelter and a General Motors factory. The New York Power Authority reserves 490 megawatts of low-cost power for industrial users in Franklin, Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, the northern tier that includes Massena. The decline of local industry means only 52 percent of that power is currently committed, which is why officials were delighted when a company called Coinmint proposed to install 16,000 computers in the old aluminum building.

The company, which is still negotiating contracts, told the power authority it would employ 150 people. Employers historically have created 30.5 jobs in exchange for each megawatt of low-cost electricity, according to the power authority, while Coinmint is proposing to create just new 10 jobs per megawatt. But 10 is more than none. “The plan is to get anybody here that you can,” said Steven D. O’Shaughnessy, Massena’s town supervisor. “I have said all along, I’ll take whatever I can.”

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept

Contributor

Please click either Link to learn more about Bitcoin.
Interested or have Questions, Call Me, 559-474-4614

Is Bitcoin a Waste of Electricity, or Something Worse?