Bitcoin
A small Texas town is about to annex a massive Bitcoin mine
In Oak Valley, a sleepy village in rural Navarro County, Texas, there is very little of anything. A rutted road winds through its two square miles of sun-baked pastureland, past a modest prefab community center and a “poor excuse for a park,” as the local mayor describes it.
Just about 400 people lives in Oak Valley. But despite its tiny size and few resources, the Texas village is preparing to double its borders, using unusual means, as an industrial-scale bitcoin mine — a move that could increase its annual budget by as much as forty times.
Four miles away from Oak Valley, on a 265-acre plot of land, public cryptocurrency mining company Riot Platforms is busy building what is expected to become the world’s largest bitcoin mining facility, according to the company. Once completed, it will consume up to 1 gigawatt of energyenough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.
Riot’s facility currently sits on a piece of unincorporated land under the jurisdiction of the Navarro County government. But the company is in the process of negotiating a deal, as evidenced by a series of email communications seen by WIRED, under which the parcel will be annexed by Oak Valley.
The annexation plan, which has not yet been finalized, will make it possible much needed improvements to Oak Valley roads and other public infrastructure. It won’t even cost Riot anything, because the power company that serves the area will foot the bill. For Riot, it’s a public relations ploy, designed to curry favor with local residents and county officials who stand to gain a lucrative rebate on their property taxes. Potentially millions of dollars are riding on its ability to garner local support in Navarro County before a final decision on its abatement request is made.
Riot declined to comment on the prospect of an annexation by Oak Valley. Brian Morgenstern, Riot’s head of public policy, would say only that “annexation has to be good for all parties.” “We want to make sure we’re being good neighbors and having positive impacts on the community,” he said.
To fund public works, a municipality like Oak Valley has to rely largely on money collected from the electricity provider in exchange for the use of local rights-of-way. These so-called franchise fees are calculated as a percentage of residents’ energy bills. Under normal circumstances, Oak Valley collects about $9,000 in franchise fees per year, which makes up 75 percent of a meager total budget that is insufficient to cover simple infrastructure improvements.
“Oak Valley doesn’t have the money,” says David Brewer, a commissioner on the Navarro County Commissioners Court, the county’s governing body. “Our county budget is extremely tight, so we can’t help some of the areas we want to help.”
However, if Oak Valley is successful in annexing the energy-hungry Riot facility, Brewer says, it will collect franchise fees “in the range of a quarter to half a million dollars a year” when the 1-gigawatt plant is completed.
Leading the movement for annexation is Max Taylor, the mayor of Oak Valley, who declined to be interviewed for this story. After a change of legislation As of 2019, Texas municipalities can no longer forcibly annex a parcel of land, so they must seek permission from the landowner. But Taylor appears to have had little trouble convincing Riot: “This project has my full support,” David Schatz, Riot’s senior vice president of operations, wrote in an email to Taylor on June 25.
Bitcoin has lost out on an asset rally fueled by positive comments from the Federal Reserve, while a tight US election race casts doubt on whether Donald Trump will get the chance to implement his pro-crypto agenda.
The digital asset fell 2.4% on Wednesday, following a Fed-fueled surge in an index of megacap tech stocks Magnificent Seven by one of the largest margins in 2024. The token retreated further on Thursday, changing hands at $63,750 as of 6:10 a.m. in London.
Bitcoin
‘This is huge’ — Billionaire Mark Cuban issues ‘incredible’ Bitcoin and crypto prediction amid price slump
Bitcoin
Bitcoin
came back with a vengeance this year when former President Donald Trump Cryptocurrency boosts US presidential election in November with ‘revolutionary’ plan.
The price of bitcoin has surged to more than its all-time high in recent months, surpassing $70,000 per bitcoin and triggering a wave of mega-optimistic predictions about the price of bitcointhough it fell again this week, falling below $65,000 after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady.
Now, as Elon Musk suddenly breaks his silence on bitcoin and cryptocurrenciesBillionaire investor Mark Cuban called a California plan to digitize 42 million car titles using blockchain an “incredible step forward” and “huge” for cryptocurrencies.
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Mark Cuban, famous Shark Tank investor and billionaire owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, has… [+] called a cryptocurrency update “amazing” amid bitcoin’s price slump.
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The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has digitized 42 million car titles using blockchain, it was reported by Reuters, through technology company Oxhead Alpha on the Avalanche blockchain and designed to detect fraud and facilitate the securities transfer process.
“This is an incredible development for crypto,” Cuban, best known as an investor on TV’s Shark Tank and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, posted on X, joking that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler could sue the state as part of his hostility toward cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
“The reason this is huge for crypto is because people who hold the tokens will have an app with an Avalanche wallet,” Cuban said. “Tens of millions of Californians having and using a crypto wallet in the next five years, or however long it takes, normalizes the use of wallets and crypto.”
John Wu, president of Avalanche developer Ava Labs, told Reuters that California’s DMV is “creating a wallet that you can download on your phone.”
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Bitcoin’s price has rallied this year, triggering a wave of bullish bitcoin price predictions from… [+] people like billionaire Mark Cuban.
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Last month, Cuban predicted that if the US dollar falls as the global reserve currency, bitcoin could become “a global ‘safe haven’” and a “global currency.” potentially sending the price of bitcoin to a much higher level.
According to Cuban, bitcoin could become what its most ardent supporters “envision” — a means “of protecting our economies… This is already happening in countries facing hyperinflation.”
The price of bitcoin has skyrocketed over the past year, largely due to the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, leading a bitcoin attack on Wall Street.
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Bitcoin (BTC) miner Riot Platforms (RIOT)’s second-quarter loss widens to $84.4 million as costs rise
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At a national bitcoin conference in Nashville, Donald Trump finally laid out some of his crypto policy proposals, including a long-awaited part of his plan — building a strategic bitcoin reserve. CNN’s Jon Sarlin explains what it is and why the crypto industry wants it.
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