Liam Denning, Columnist

A Deep Dive Into Crypto's Cure for the Texas Power Grid

Yes, it could raise electricity demand and encourage extra solar and wind power, but there are other ways to do that.

February 10, 2022 at 11:00 AM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Modern-day miner.
Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg

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Blackouts spring from the occasional void between power supply and demand. The usual fix involves increasing supply (spare generating capacity) or reducing demand (energy efficiency). Bitcoin bulls propose a counterintuitive alternative: more demand.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is welcoming crypto-miners to his state, touting their ability to strengthen the electricity grid (see this in-depth report by Michael Smith for Bloomberg News). Mining cryptocurrencies requires ever more computing power and, therefore, energy. Miners seek cheap electricity, which made Chinese coal power attractive and provoked an environmental backlash. China cracked down on crypto last year, and miners have flocked to other places with cheap power, including Texas.