What It’s Like to Live in a Small Town Polluted by a Cryptomine

In 2020, Cyndie Roberson and her husband bought their dream cabin on the Hiwassee River in Cherokee County, North Carolina. Like the Finger Lakes, Cherokee County is a picturesque, serene region filled with vast forests and lakes, a refuge Roberson had always dreamed of settling in. But just a year after she moved, she and her neighbors began to hear what sounded like a plane sitting on a tarmac waiting for take off. “It’s like a jet engine that never leaves,” Roberson said. “It is a low-frequency hum, and that low frequency, I’ve learned, is far more irritating to human beings. It does something inside your brain.”
A growing body of research shows that chronic noise triggers a number of reactions in the brain and body, which can lead to increased risks of cardiovascular disease. Roberson and her neighbors eventually discovered the noise was coming from a bitcoin mine owned by the California-based company PrimeBlock, in the nearby town of Murphy. She says they weren’t aware the mine was starting up but were immediately affected by it.
Forced to endure the tangible impacts of a volatile digital currency that benefits just a handful of crypto magnates, Roberson and her neighbors educated themselves on bitcoin and fought to shut down PrimeBlock’s operation. Roberson co-founded the advocacy group Cherokee County Citizens Against Crypto Mining, spoke at public hearings, and compiled more than 3,000 signatures for a petition to ban cryptomines in the area. Her interactions with the company’s employees were limited but memorable.