British Columbia maintains Bitcoin mining ban despite Vancouver's 'BTC-friendly City' motion

What to know

• In contrast to Vancouver's 'bitcoin-friendly city' move, British Columbia maintains a strict ban on new bitcoin mining connections until December 2025.

• This ban has been challenged in court and upheld.

While Vancouver's City Council has passed a motion to explore becoming a 'bitcoin-friendly city', British Columbia still has a province-wide ban on mining BTC until December 2025.

B.C.'s bitcoin mining ban began in December 2022 to address energy concerns, and it faced a legal challenge from Conifex Timber, which the B.C. Supreme Court upheld in early 2024, citing the policy's reasonableness and alignment with public utility regulations.

BC Hydro, the largest electricity utility in the province, relies heavily on hydroelectric power, which generates over 90% of its electricity.

Vancouver's motion – introduced to the council by Mayor Ken Sim – focuses on bitcoin's financial benefits and mentions the benefits of bitcoin mining, but it can't influence mining because of electricity regulation and BC Hydro's operations fall under provincial jurisdiction.

"The Province still has a ban on cryptocurrency mining and is continuing its work towards a permanent cryptocurrency mining policy," a spokesperson for BC Hydro said.

Earlier this year, B.C.'s legislature passed an updated version of the Energy Statutes Amendment Act, which was first drafted following B.C. Hydro's temporary suspension of bitcoin mining connections to the provincial grid.

The updated Act specifically enables the provincial government to bypass the BC Utilities Commission, the Provincial electricity regulator, giving it direct authority to regulate electricity service specifically for crypto.

Conifex Timber, which had bitcoin mining farms in the province scheduled for connection to the grid, argued in court that these conditions were "unduly discriminatory and unreasonable," but ultimately, a Provincial judge disagreed.

"One question arising out of the move towards regulating electricity with respect to crypto-mining projects is whether the Province could begin to regulate the availability of electricity for other industries in a similar manner," lawyers at McCarthy Tetrault, a Canadian law firm, wrote in a May 2024 post.

During the debate over the updated Act, lawyers from McCarthy Tetrault noted that the leader of the provincial Green Party argued in the legislature that Liquified Natural Gas and emerging technologies like AI should face similar energy regulations as bitcoin mining due to, what the party views as their high energy use and limited economic benefits.

Local bitcoin mining bans are not unique. New York State has a moratorium, with an exception for renewable energy. However, some states, like Arkansas and Montana, have bills that protect bitcoin miners from what they call "discrimination."

Pennsylvania recently scrapped its mining ban to advance other energy conservation bills.