It’s too hot for cryptocurrency mining in Texas. Blockchain technology companies have decided to voluntarily shut down, as energy demand and prices soar.

Cryptocurrency miners in Texas, United States, are temporarily shutting down operations this week as a heat wave punishes the power grid in the North American state.

On Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, asked residents and businesses, especially large energy users, to reduce energy use to avoid blackouts and power outages during an intense heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit).

“Extremely hot weather is causing record power demand across Texas,” the state’s grid operator said.

Last month, Texas already recorded high temperatures. This new heat wave is expected to last beyond this week.

Ecological Decision or Financial Reasons?

Major Bitcoin mining operations have agreed to shut down their energy-intensive systems so as not to tax Texas. Otherwise, they would have used more than 1,000 megawatts of electricity, according to the Texas Blockchain Council. As reported by The Verge, this freed up about 1 percent of the total network capacity.

“They’re shutting down for various reasons, but mainly because it’s the right thing to do to be a good ‘net citizen,'” Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, told The Verge. There are also financial reasons, Bratcher said, as spot electricity prices in Texas skyrocket when power is in short supply.

At the same time, Riot Blockchain, the largest mining operation in the state, said it was cutting power. The company retweeted a statement saying its massive Rockdale hub cut power on July 10 until 10 p.m., adding that it would do so again when the grid needed to stabilize again.

The United States, the Largest Mining Center in the World

Despite the kind gestures, as reported by Bloomberg, these cryptocurrency miners are expected to increase demand by as much as six gigawatts by the middle of next year, which is equivalent to powering all the homes in Houston. However, its power usage is now estimated to have dropped in the past month after the price of Bitcoin plummeted.

Bitcoin miners have flocked to Texas over the past year after China banned the practice, making the United States the world’s largest mining hub.

Battered Reputation

In recent years, awareness of the repercussions that Blockchain technology can have on the environment has grown. A concrete example has been the small, but “energy-rich” country of Kazakhstan, which has already faced problems when it struggled to simultaneously cope with the energy demands of cryptocurrency miners and heat their homes during a cold winter.

Texas has become one of the top destinations in the United States for miners thanks to liberal regulations and very welcoming leadership. Meanwhile, New York—one of its only rival states for hash rate (a measure of computing power)—has left carbon mining on a knife edge after the state senate approved last month a moratorium of two years on this practice.

By Audy Castaneda

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