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Bitcoin Medicine

Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town (time.com) 212

Longtime Slashdot reader ArchieBunker shares a report from TIME Magazine: On an evening in December 2023, 43-year-old small business owner Sarah Rosenkranz collapsed in her home in Granbury, Texas and was rushed to the emergency room. Her heart pounded 200 beats per minute; her blood pressure spiked into hypertensive crisis; her skull throbbed. "It felt like my head was in a pressure vise being crushed," she says. "That pain was worse than childbirth." Rosenkranz's migraine lasted for five days. Doctors gave her several rounds of IV medication and painkiller shots, but nothing seemed to knock down the pain, she says. This was odd, especially because local doctors were similarly vexed when Indigo, Rosenkranz's 5-year-old daughter, was taken to urgent care earlier that year, screaming that she felt a "red beam behind her eardrums." It didn't occur to Sarah that these symptoms could be linked. But in January 2024, she walked into a town hall in Granbury and found a room full of people worn thin from strange, debilitating illnesses. A mother said her 8-year-old daughter was losing her hearing and fluids were leaking from her ears. Several women said they experienced fainting spells, including while driving on the highway. Others said they were wracked by debilitating vertigo and nausea, waking up in the middle of the night mid-vomit. None of them knew what, exactly, was causing these symptoms. But they all shared a singular grievance: a dull aural hum had crept into their lives, which growled or roared depending on the time of day, rattling their windows and rendering them unable to sleep. The hum, local law enforcement had learned, was emanating from a Bitcoin mining facility that had recently moved into the area -- and was exceeding legal noise ordinances on a daily basis.

Over the course of several months in 2024, TIME spoke to more than 40 people in the Granbury area who reported a medical ailment that they believe is connected to the arrival of the Bitcoin mine: hypertension, heart palpitations, chest pain, vertigo, tinnitus, migraines, panic attacks. At least 10 people went to urgent care or the emergency room with these symptoms. The development of large-scale Bitcoin mines and data centers is quite new, and most of them are housed in extremely remote places. There have been no major medical studies on the impacts of living near one. But there is an increasing body of scientific studies linking prolonged exposure to noise pollution with cardiovascular damage. And one local doctor -- ears, nose, and throat specialist Salim Bhaloo -- says he sees patients with symptoms potentially stemming from the Bitcoin mine's noise on an almost weekly basis. "I'm sure it increases their cortisol and sugar levels, so you're getting headaches, vertigo, and it snowballs from there," Bhaloo says. "This thing is definitely causing a tremendous amount of stress. Everyone is just miserable about it."
"By the end of 2024, we intend to have replaced the majority of air-cooled containers with immersion cooling, with no expansion required," said a representative for Marathon Digital Holdings, the company that owns the mine. "Initial sound readings on immersion containers indicate favorable results in sound reduction and compliance with all relevant state noise ordinances." They did not answer questions about the health impacts their mining site was causing.

"We're living in a nightmare," said Rosenkranz. She clocked the hum at 72 decibels in Indigo's bedroom in the dead of night. "Indigo's room directly faces the mine, which sits about a mile and a half away," notes TIME. She had to be pulled from her school after she developed so many ear infections from the sound.

The report also said a resident's dog "started going bald and developed debilitating anxiety shortly after the Bitcoin mine began operating four blocks away." TIME added: "Directly next door, Tom Weeks' dog Jack Rabbit Slim started shaking and hyperventilating uncontrollably for hours on end; a vet placed him on the seizure medication Gabapentin. Rosenkranz's chickens stopped laying eggs for months. And Jerry and Patricia Campbell's centuries-old oak tree, which had served as the family's hub and protector for generations of backyard family reunions and even a wedding, died suddenly three months ago."
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Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town

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  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @08:50PM (#64617305)

    Imagine if there was a bitcoin mine in every town...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Not _in_ Granbury (Score:4, Informative)

    by rally2xs ( 1093023 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @08:57PM (#64617325)

    For the record, the article was seen by locals here in Granbury that posted that this facility is about 5 miles out of town, which is why I haven't heard it in my travels around town. There has been much chatter on local web pages about the noise, with people measuring 90 Db of noise. That's a lot of noise. I wouldn't be surprised that there were health consequences from something like that. But it's a Hood County problem, not a Granbury problem.

    An arial photo of the site shows what appears to be an attempt at a sound wall around it. Apparently that's not working too well.

    Something needs to be done, but what is the big question. Apparently there's not a great solution short of simply shutting down the site, which would be unfair to the business. Maybe a $$$ / day fine for violating noise standards that's high enough to make building an effective sound barrier around the place cheaper than paying the fine would be a viable approach.

    • by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @09:14PM (#64617359)
      Its unfair to business that they don't have to follow the law, but its perfectly fair that everyone else accept the consequences?
    • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @09:33PM (#64617411) Homepage Journal

      What's unfair about not being allowed to drive people from their homes (or in to their graves) with your excessive noise?

    • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Thursday July 11, 2024 @01:11AM (#64617683)

      Shutting it down IS fair, because they are breaking the local ordinances. They provide no actual benefit to the local economy. There is no need for society to have bitcoin miners in the first place, nobody should be treating them like your average businesses that provide a service. Chances are they just leave if there's a fine, and the site is left as a trash pit for local tax dollars to clean up (good luck tracking down the asshole owners in order to sue them). Do not confuse a bitcoin mining facility with something as fancy or useful as a "data center".

    • "An arial photo of the site shows what appears to be an attempt at a sound wall around it. Apparently that's not working too well." Wouldn't work so well if the sound waves are being transmitted through the ground, which I suspect the case may be.
    • Apparently there's not a great solution short of simply shutting down the site, which would be unfair to the business.

      Not at all unfair. They had the option of designing their plant to conform to the same regulations that everyone else has to and they chose not to. Why should they get to socialise the cost of their incompetence onto others? Why do you see a value in allowing incompetently run businesses to profit and put competently run ones at a competitive disadvantage? Shouldn't we let the free market allow good businesses to prosper rather than distorting it by allowing unequal compliance to standards?

  • by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @09:23PM (#64617385)

    Don't know what scaling they are referring to with the 72dB, but if that is weighted broad spectrum the operators need to go to jail. Even if it is a single octave or single frequency that is insane at distance.

    I got in trouble for work once due to loud temporary equipment at a data center-- it was a 48-hour work window starting midnight Friday running through to Sunday... and we were well under 60dBA at the property line.

    • by torkus ( 1133985 )

      It's clearly wrong or there's another noise source in the room. They'd need something like a jet engine going full blast and aimed at the town to generate that sound level.

  • by resfilter ( 960880 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2024 @10:36PM (#64617505)

    i live near a gigantic paper goods production facility

    the whole move towards banning plastic containers has increased their output 10 fold, they used to just churn out some paper, now plastic straws are illegal so they make millions of straws etc

    they must run several heavy duty vehicles similar to a front end loader

    their job is to constantly rotate their massive pile of exposed wood chips and they do so 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since the size of the pile has also increased exponentially

    one day they received a mandate to put very high decibel beepers on their equipment that operate when in reverse

    BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

    oh your house has a humming noise? cry me a river

    • oh your house has a humming noise? cry me a river

      Corporations are running lives and your response is "screw you they're ruining mine too". My 2p is that you're angry at the wrong people here.

    • Depending on where you live in the world, you just need to get your local environmental health officer to monitor the sound level and the company will either need to have to find a quieter way to comply with regulations, move, or sound insulate your house for you.

  • Make anything they try to do moot? At least on a federal level it's basically impossible now to regulate businesses and I think it's safe to say Texas isn't going to do anything about it.
    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Texas is actually pretty conservative and conservatives like to preserve their way of life. They will drive this BTC mining center out of the county if they dont fix the noise issue. Texans like their 2nd Amendment and the judicious use of the 2nd Amendment will immediately shutdown the noise source. Its not that hard to hit a cargo container even from 1.5 miles away. BTW is the state with the most wind energy. Conservatives are not dumb , they are just conservative and try to look before they leap. if the
      • they are just conservative and try to look before they leap.

        Nope. NopeNopeNopeNope. They're terrified of change, aggressively anti-reality/science/progress and enjoy huge dollops of self delusion.

        Nice try at reframing their stance but no.

      • Conservatives are not dumb , they are just conservative and try to look before they leap.

        Conservatives are trying to do the same dumb shit that doesn't work that they have always done. Austerity for the poor and immunity for the rich never worked and never will work. These miners are breaking the law already so why is the government not shutting them down? Answer, because business is important and people aren't, and if conservatives were such geniuses they wouldn't have elected officials that treat them that way.

  • by bickerdyke ( 670000 ) on Thursday July 11, 2024 @03:01AM (#64617769)

    ...but what exactly is the difference between a "Bitcoin Mine" and a regular datacenter?

    Both are a bunch of servers, that on their own don't make any noise at all. The noise making devices are cooling and other HVAC stuff. But that's required in non-bitcoin datacenters, too.

    Do we know about such problems there, too?

    • Money and taxation I should imagine.

    • I'd guess that the typical bitcoin mine has SIGNIFICANTLY higher cooling requirements per machine than the typical datacenter. Completely different computational profile.

    • ...but what exactly is the difference between a "Bitcoin Mine" and a regular datacenter?

      Both are a bunch of servers, that on their own don't make any noise at all. The noise making devices are cooling and other HVAC stuff. But that's required in non-bitcoin datacenters, too.

      Do we know about such problems there, too?

      But ... but ... Bitcoin makes the cows dry up and the chickens stop laying! It's a witch!

    • by DewDude ( 537374 ) on Thursday July 11, 2024 @07:23AM (#64618081) Homepage

      Data centers are engineered to keep noise levels down.

      Bitcoin Mines are shady operations set up by dudes who don't have proper engineering skills and therefore just slap shit together.

  • Yes, excessive in or constant noise is damaging to physical health, but I think mass hysteria might be playing a very big role in it. Wikipedia has a good article listing historical incidents of mass hysteria. I don't like $hitcoin for many reasons, but I doubt that they are beaming lasers into anybody's ears or creating some kind of massive EM field that can cause symptoms akin to radiation sickness. The window rattling is being caused by resonance with the sound frequencies present in the excessive noise
  • I stopped any attempt at believing when I got to the bit about dogs going bald. That's Mange, not mining.

  • Infrasound (Score:4, Informative)

    by IDemand2HaveSumBooze ( 9493913 ) on Thursday July 11, 2024 @04:34AM (#64617879)

    While a constant loud noise is bound to be miserable, infrasound [wikipedia.org] is the most likely explanation for the health problems the town residents are reporting. Certain very low frequencies not detectable by human hearing have been known to cause various health problems. From the description of the sound:

    a dull aural hum had crept into their lives, which growled or roared depending on the time of day

    it definitely sounds like low-frequency noise, so some of it probably crosses the infrasound threshold. Animals having problems also makes sense, animal hearing is more sensitive than human. The tree dying though is most likely unrelated.

  • Whatever "Marathon Digital Holdings" is up to is probably legal-ish/not legal but they wrote those noise rules for obnoxious parties so it takes an awful lot of escalation when the problem is a presumptively-legitimate business venture; so I'm not surprised that regulatory action is going nowhere particularly fast; but, as we've learned from those various mysterious substation attacks that the FBI is real concerned about but never seems to have any leads on, electrical infrastructure and cooling equipment just hate rifle fire.

    Maybe I'm trading in hurtful regional stereotypes; but if I were doing something that had an entire town in Texas convinced I was sickening them for profit I'd be counting my blessings to not have parties unknown who everyone will swear they known nothing about taking a few shots into the hardware on carefully chosen nights.

    It wouldn't even need to be the slightly more excitable sort of people who are willing to do interpersonal violence(though those are certainly a thing): a very low margin datacenter operation is going to have as close to zero staff, especially off-hours, as they can get away with; and a security guard density calibrated more toward keeping opportunistic junkies from having all night to crowbar out stuff for the scrapyard; not some heavily manned perimeter or scary rapid-response team. It's just be a property crime you could do from several hundred meters away(can you hit the broad side of a shipping container? You're qualified!), minimal risk to anyone, and feel like you've done a little community service afterwards.

Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker

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