Cloud Hosting

"Well right now there is kind of a downturn in the crypto market," said James Beauchamp with MOTRAN.

MIDLAND, Texas West Texas has ties with cryptocurrency mining using natural gas from things like flares to power machines that mine bitcoin.

In the past month or so, the cryptocurrency market has seen a dip.

"Well right now there is kind of a downturn in the crypto market." Said James Beauchamp with MOTRAN. "Weather you like cryptocurrency or don't, from a Permian Basin perspective it's very unique because your using a product that's fairly expensive to capture and collect and to get into a normal system where you would sell your natural gas in a lot of cases and your providing a secondary market for it."

Here in the Permian basin, oil and gas is used to power cryptocurrency mining. This type of cryptocurrency mining is also important because it doesn't put a strain on the states power grid, especially in these hot summer months.

"I think one of the big concerns from a statewide perspective on cryptocurrency has always been if we already have an overtaxed electric grid, and we do if you're mining crypto off of that grid then that's just another burden in an already overburdened system," Beauchamp said

Mining cryptocurrency does have benefits for both groups.

"It's not just the fact that your utilizing natural gas or for the end user gathering the accumulation of the cryptocurrency they're mining for but also the carbon credits as we talk about air quality issues of that nature," Beauchamp said. "There are a number of credits out there, tax credits so again I think its another way we can be proactive and show our industry and our area is proactive."

From here, things are up in the air but for the Permian Basin things are looking up.

"Where's it going to end up?" Beauchamp said. "Nobody really knows, but at the same time not knowing there's some benefits in the Permian Basin. The good part is even if all the rest of it goes downhill in certain way the Permian wins at least in short term."

View original post here:
A downturn in the cryptocurrency market and the impacts on West Texas - NewsWest9.com