New Hampshire lawmakers to vote on deregulating cryptocurrency mining
If enacted, House Bill 639 would forbid state agencies and local officials from regulating cryptocurrency mining. (Photo by)
A bill that has passed the New Hampshire House of Representatives and is set to be voted on by the state Senate Thursday would tie the hands of anyone trying to regulate cryptocurrency mining — a move heralded by libertarians and the crypto lobby but decried by environmentalists.
When introducing the bill, Rep. Keith Ammon, a New Boston Republican and the bill's sponsor, said it would 'give confidence to the industry that we're not going to discriminate against them because it's happened in other states.' Ammon pointed to North Tonawanda, New York, which The Buffalo News reported in 2024 banned crypto mining for energy and noise concerns.
If enacted, House Bill 639 would forbid state agencies and local officials from regulating cryptocurrency mining. It enshrines into law a protection for people to conduct in-home cryptocurrency mining. State agencies and local officials would be unable to ban cryptocurrency mining in their city, town, or elsewhere in the state under this bill. They would be unable to place sound limits on cryptocurrency mining, though miners would have to obey other sound ordinances. They also wouldn't be able to charge cryptocurrency miners additional money for any outsized impact they have on the electric grid. Finally, they'd be unable to prevent people from using cryptocurrency to buy or sell things.
Cryptocurrency mining is the process of generating cryptocurrencies — which are digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin — using high-energy supercomputers. The computers essentially use trial and error until they've guessed the solution to a puzzle that unlocks the cryptocurrency from what is known as a blockchain. These virtual assets are often bought and sold for U.S. dollars or other currencies, making mining lucrative. Proponents of crypto hope it will one day be used as a regular currency, and some buyers and sellers have already adopted it as such.
'The benefit for projecting that we're friendly to mining is that it can help incentivize future generations,' Ammon said at a recent Senate hearing. 'We want to get out of this scarcity mindset that there's only a fixed pie of so much energy to go around.'
Ammon — who said he owns digital assets himself and is the chair of the nonprofit New Hampshire Blockchain Council — dismissed environmental concerns about cryptocurrency's effect on the planet and electric grids.
'There's some folks that believe Bitcoin mining is gonna raise the oceans, we're all gonna drown, or we're gonna boil the seas or something like that,' he said. 'All this section does is prevent municipalities from discriminating against the energy use.'
Ammon said this bill is based on the work of the Commission on Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, which was established by former Gov. Chris Sununu to study regulations for these digital assets, as well as model legislation circulating in other states. That model legislation was created by a Mississippi-based industry group called Satoshi Action Fund. The group seeks to promote cryptocurrency nationwide and boasts on its website that its policies have been implemented in four states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, and Oklahoma. The Satoshi Action Fund was also a consultant to the governor's cryptocurrency commission.
The bill also specifies that cryptocurrency mining and other operations are not considered securities or investment contracts. This has sparked concerns among regulators, including Katie Taylor, with the state Bureau of Securities Regulation, who said in a Senate hearing, 'It would prohibit the bureau's ability to protect New Hampshire investors.'
The bill has also drawn the attention of environmentalists in New Hampshire and elsewhere.
'What this bill says is shocking,' Cathy Corkery, chapter director of the New Hampshire Sierra Club, said. 'It devalues and demotes communities from being able to zone and govern the enterprises within its own borders.'
Corkery and her colleagues have several gripes with cryptocurrency mining. First, it's loud and usually runs 24/7, which in other communities has drawn intense ire from neighbors. It's highly energy intensive, so it causes carbon emissions and could become a strain on the electric grid. (Analysis from a Dutch doctoral student found that, as of May 2025, the electrical energy consumption of a single Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to that of an average U.S. household over 45.60 days.) And many operations use lots of water to cool down their equipment. (Another analysis from the same researcher found that an average Bitcoin transaction uses enough water to fill a small backyard swimming pool.) They're afraid this will raise utility bills and the hot water the facilities expel will hurt wildlife.
'The reality is that this isn't just some guy with a computer,' she said. 'These are supercomputers that suck up a lot of energy.'
Corkery is concerned how this will impact climate change, the state's electrical grid, and quiet communities unaccustomed to loud industrial noise. Most of all, she dislikes how it hinders local government oversight.
'It takes away a town's sovereignty,' she said. 'And it says you must allow this in your town.'
Corkery said she'd heard about this legislation in other states from her national partners and so 'had sort of an understanding of the experiences in other communities that had accepted this bill' before it came to New Hampshire. As such, the Granite State has garnered attention from people who have been fighting Satoshi Action Fund-endorsed legislation elsewhere.
Cyndie Roberson, a founding member of the National Coalition Against Cryptomining, called New Hampshire's HB 639 'a boilerplate piece of legislation written by one of crypto mining's biggest lobbying firms' and said Satoshi Action Fund 'shoot(s) this legislation out shotgun approach across states.' She pointed to Arkansas, where Satoshi Action Fund was successful in enacting the policies, as 'a cautionary tale.'
When Arkansas enacted the Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023 and a slew of crypto mines came to the state, it was met by intense uproar, Little Rock Public Radio reported. In an interview with CBS News, Gladys Anderson, who lived near a cryptocurrency mine in Bono, Arkansas, described the 24/7 sound of roughly 17,000 computer fans running in the mine 'like a form of military-grade torture.' In 2024, responding to the blowback, a bipartisan group of Arkansas lawmakers approved legislation to reverse the unconditional protections miners had from local government regulation. However, a federal judge ordered the state to pause that legislation because a provision of the bill bans foreign ownership of crypto mines (legislators were also worried about mines' potential ties to China), which may violate the 14th Amendment.
'My cautionary tale to legislators in New Hampshire who feel pressured to do this, it's a very hard bell to unring,' Roberson said. 'Once they pass this and it's a done deal, it's very difficult to get parts of it changed or repealed once it's in place.'
Satoshi Action Fund did not respond to the Bulletin's request for comment and an interview.
Corkery, with the Sierra Club, called Ammon's worries about cryptocurrency miners being discriminated against 'a farce.'
'He has no examples of it being discriminated against in New Hampshire,' she said. 'He characterizes this bill as a welcome sign for the cryptocurrency industry. This is not a welcome sign. This is a come-plow-through-our-state flag.'
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