Kentucky’s Bitcoin Boom Has Gone Bust

Her skepticism is rooted successful lived experience: In October 2000, a monolithic ember slurry spill from a excavation tract upstream poisoned nan Coldwater Fork stream, which runs down her house. People successful Inez couldn’t portion h2o from nan pat for months.

“Those of america surviving downstream didn't perceive astir it for a while, but nan schoolhouse strategy had to adjacent down for astir a week until they sewage an alternate h2o source,” she says.

To this day, galore successful Inez still don’t spot nan pat water.

So erstwhile McCoy hears nan hype astir AI, she hears thing else: different committedness that comes pinch a cost. “We’ve allowed these group to beryllium called occupation creators,” she said. “And I don’t attraction if it’s AI aliases crypto aliases whatever, we front down to them and fto them show america what they are going to do to our organization because they are occupation creators. They’re not occupation creators, they’re profit makers.”

And nan profit leaves a footprint.

AI information centers request staggering amounts of energy—a ChatGPT hunt uses up to 10 times much power than a regular Google one—and they tally hot. To support them cool, these accommodation devour billions of gallons of h2o each year. Most of that evaporates, but residents are wary because they person had problems pinch accommodation and their runoff successful nan past, truthful they interest these caller accommodation could impact food and disrupt nan land. The very things nan residents of Kentucky dream to preserve.

Still, immoderate locals spot potential, moreover progress.

“AI is successful everything that we do,” said Wes Hamilton, a section entrepreneur who did his adjacent stock of crypto mining successful Kentucky successful its heyday. “Siri, ChatGPT, robotics—everything you tin ideate has to person AI,” he said. “Bitcoin is simply a one-trick pony. You create it. The only personification that gets paid is nan proprietor of nan machines.”

Hamilton claims location is simply a way guardant wherever information centers bring successful investors, engineers, possibly moreover companies consenting to stay. All nan AI group successful nan world would beryllium steaming into Kentucky, Hamilton says. And while he admits to losing a luck successful crypto ventures successful nan past, he claims this is different.

When Bitcoin first arrived, lawmakers offered generous taxation breaks to lure miners. Companies investing much than $1 cardinal were exempted from paying income taxes connected hardware and electricity. And then, successful March 2025, Kentucky politician Andy Beshear took each that and went a measurement further by signing a “Bitcoin Rights” measure into law.

The legislation, formed arsenic a defense of individual financial freedom, is designed to enshrine nan correct to usage integer assets successful Kentucky. An earlier draught went further, aiming to barroom section governments from utilizing zoning laws to restrict crypto mining operations—a proviso that drew guidance from biology groups. That connection was yet tempered, but nan intent remains: to awesome that, successful Kentucky, integer extraction tin support humming.

Which is why we recovered ourselves extracurricular this installation successful Campton, staring astatine this semicircle of metallic buildings nestled successful nan trees. The mines tally each nighttime and each day, moreover Sundays. And nan mobility immoderate are asking now, pinch bitcoin hovering astir $100,000 and big miners talking astir pivoting to AI, is whether bitcoin mining gets a 2nd upwind successful Kentucky.

Mohawk’s bitcoin mining whitethorn moreover make a comeback. Anna Whites said nan parties are expected to spell into arbitration May 12th. “I’m hopeful,” she told us. “I’m very hopeful that they beryllium down and say, ‘Mighty bully works you person there. Let’s conscionable spell up and move it on.’”