Any Americans who have their miners hosted at Bitriver or own any significant amount of equity in the company must stop interacting with Bitriver immediately, highlighting the risk one takes when they don’t control their infrastructure and host their miners in areas that are subject to increased political risk.
It was proven to be politically risky to mine in Quebec in the mid-2010s as the government there freaked out and began treating bitcoin miners who were utilizing excess electricity produced by Hydro Quebec like second-class citizens by singling them out and increasing their electricity rates and sales tax.
government let these people receive their machines if Bitriver is an ethical business and attempts to do so? These are questions I don’t know the answer to at the moment, but are questions miners should ask themselves before loading their operations up with third-party risk.
As Bitcoin continues to grow — and with it, the target on its back — bitcoin miners should be hyper-aware of these third-party risks and attempt to mitigate them to the best of their ability.
I truly hope this does not come to fruition, but it is hard to argue that they aren’t massive sitting targets that insane federal governments can try to wage attacks against.
I feel terrible that Bitriver and their customers have been dragged into a political shit show and are now being financially damaged because those in the political class are gung-ho on escalating geopolitical tensions as they continue their massive Deep State dick measuring contest in front of the world.
If you’re running a mining operation make sure you take the Deep State dick-measuring contests, the political environment of your local government and the size of your operation into consideration when building it out.