The law, which had already passed the New York State Assembly in April, received a 36-27 vote in favor in the Senate. For several months, legislators have been working to restrict the rise of crypto mining in the state. In June of last year, an earlier version of the bill called for a three-year moratorium on a broader range of mining facilities perished in the Assembly. Some critics of the present version of the ban, like Republican Assemblyman Robert Smullen, have called it "anti-tech." In contrast, others claim it will hurt New York's reputation as a crypto powerhouse.
The new bill stated that many cryptocurrency mining operations in New York had been mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum using the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm.
The bill mentioned that some bitcoin mining companies had bought abandoned fossil fuel plants and had begun utilizing them at a considerably higher pace than they had previously done. Those enterprises had been essentially working as fossil-fuel-fueled electric producing facilities.
The new bill cited the need to examine whether the rise of Proof-of-Work Authenticated cryptocurrency mining companies that manage their electric production facilities and generate electricity by burning fossil fuels was incompatible with the legally mandated greenhouse gas emission targets. If passed, New York would become the first state to prohibit the use of blockchain technology infrastructure.