A California based digital currency mining outfit has set it’s sites on Southeast Memphis for their latest crypto mine. The request by Merkle Standard to convert the former Easy Way produce distribution center at 4545 S. Mendenhall Rd. includes adding additional shipping containers placed on the property. The containers, called pods, house thousands of crypto computes that work around the clock to solve very complex mathematical calculations in effort to earn Bitcoins or crypto-currency.
The land is currently zoned for industrial use. A crypto mine consumes enormous amounts of energy, can be very loud if cooled by air and can also use enormous amounts of water to keep the thousands of computers cool as they process equations attempting to “earn” the company Bitcoins.
Bitcoin was created around 2009 by a person or persons who use the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It was started as a way to make large transfers without central bank traceability and quickly became the currency of choice for drug trafficking, weapons purchases and other illicit activities on the dark web. The FBI shutdown a darknet marketplace known as Silk Road in 2013. Darknet markets exist using cryptocurrencies as the method of payments for illicit activities, drugs, untraceable commodities, stolen identities and more.
Newstalk 989’s Ditch and Tim Van Horn spoke to a farmer in Arkansas who battled owners of a crypto mine next to his farm land and was shocked at what he found out.
