New Hampshire Senate stalls crypto mining deregulation bill after split vote

The Senate Commerce Committee just hit pause on a bill that would've let crypto miners go wild in New Hampshire. After getting absolutely flooded with public feedback (Senator Tara Reardon said it was the most emails she's ever gotten for a single bill), they deadlocked twice and finally voted 4-2 to send this thing back for more study.

House Bill 639 was supposed to be the crypto miner's dream - it would've stopped towns from creating restrictions on mining operations (think electricity caps or noise limits) and banned special taxes on digital assets. The bill also would've guaranteed your right to mine crypto and created a dedicated blockchain court with a governor-appointed judge to handle all the inevitable disputes.

This isn't the first time this bill got sent back to the drawing board. Back in May, senators returned it to committee to clean up the language and build more support. Republican Representative Keith Ammon is pushing this thing, and it's expected to come before the full Senate in 2026.

While New Hampshire is pumping the brakes, other states are going full throttle on regulating mining operations. Crypto mining uses insane computing power to verify transactions and secure proof-of-work chains like Bitcoin, rewarding miners with fresh coins in the process.

The energy consumption has always been the main criticism, but the industry is actually cleaning up its act. A new report from MiCA Crypto Alliance and Nodiens shows coal's share in Bitcoin mining dropped from 63% in 2011 to just 20% in 2024. Meanwhile, renewable energy use in mining has been growing by about 5.8% annually.

But some states aren't buying the greenwashing. On October 2, New York Senator Liz Krueger dropped a bill to slap tiered excise taxes on mining operations. The tax structure is brutal - miners using up to 2.25 million kWh annually get a pass, but anyone burning through 2.26-5 million kWh gets hit with a 2-cent tax per kWh. Ouch.