Manchester City Council Discusses Concerns about New Crypto-Mining Company

A crypto-mining business is planning to come to Manchester.

The site plan was approved by the Manchester City Council in late December, but on Monday night, a few local residents raised concerns about the potential development during the city council meeting.

The Cedar Falls-based company is called Simple Mining. They currently operate six sites across Iowa and are looking to expand their operations. Crypto-mining involves using specialized computer hardware to solve complex mathematical puzzles, verifying blocks of data on a blockchain, and adding them to the public ledger – essentially acting as a decentralized record-keeper for cryptocurrency transactions in exchange for a reward in the form of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, where miners earn a portion of the newly-created coins for their efforts in securing the network.

City Manager Tim Vick says the company will be located in Manchester’s industrial park just north of Stryten Energy. 

One of the concerns raised by some residents was the high use of energy used by crypto-mining companies and how that might impact Manchester. But Vick says Simple Mining’s electricity will be on a separate grid.

The second concern was the assumption that crypto-mining uses a lot of water because their servers are water-cooled. Vick says that wouldn’t be the case with this company’s site in Manchester.

The third concern was the potential noise level from the fans that cool the facility. Vick says the City Council will be exploring that concern by making a visit to Simple Mining’s headquarters.

Vick says unless the City finds something that the company misconstrued to the Council on their site plan, they are able to move forward.

Before the Simple Mining proposal was presented to the Manchester City Council, it was first reviewed and approved by the Manchester Planning and Zoning Board – with city officials seeing several benefits that the company could bring to Manchester.

You can learn more about the company at simplemining.io.

photo courtesy of Janelle Tucker/KMCH