These rocks, which were once home to the ancient coal mines, now have freight containers made of steel. And inside, specialized computers contest to solve complicated math problems—competing to confirm bitcoin transactions and receive slivers of online currency as a reward.
In a fleeting second, 2021, it seemed like the area had experienced its second boom, and Bitcoin was written all over it. Kentucky accounted for roughly 20 % of the US’s total computing power when it was at its optimum for proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining.
But booms, around, have a background. And so are the buck. Because state regulations are mild and there is a common lack of transparency in the sector, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise amount of bitcoin mines that are still engaged in eastern Kentucky. But what is obvious, visitors say, is that the growth has begun to fade.
Anna Whites, a prosecutor who represented a squad of crypto miners customers, claims that they” could have constructed on someone else’s territory, or they would be paying a host company to provide the actual flower.” They may either agree to pay the landlord, and then they would mine for the first three months before moving on to the next billing set period, come almost to the end of it, and then vanish.
In early 2022, when Mohawk Energy initiated a crypto mining project in Jenkins, Kentucky, regional authorities said this day it would be different. Mohawk, a company founded by Kentucky lawmaker Brandon Smith, purchased a towering 41, 000-square-foot structure and the 8 acres that surround it. The majority of the building, which was leased to a Chinese bitcoin mining company, contained schools and hands-on training centers intended to teach locals how to restore iPads, keep Bitcoin rigs, and develop skills for a modern economy. It was a big deal for Jenkins. A tale about the release was published by a regional PBS stop. Tool products, employees, and smiling authorities were depicted in the images.
” The prepare with Mohawk was to use retired coal workers and disabled soldiers who were up in eastern Kentucky and don’t get work, and coach them”, said Whites, who counts Mohawk as one of her clients. The project also promised to give nearly six-figure salaries and a pledge to donate some of the mining profits to the training program to aid in its expansion, among other things. And it did work for a while.
Whites said that for a brief moment—about 18 months—things looked promising. Twenty-eight families saw tangible benefits: About 30 additional relatives found employment close to the family, and one person from each family received a permanent job. She paused when we asked where things were now, though. ” I believe most of them are unemployed again”.
One East Kentucky, a nonprofit run by Colby Kirk, aims to promote economic growth in the area. He recalls the moment the conversation changed, when he was in Paducah for the spring conference of the Kentucky Association for Economic Development in April.
” They had some site selection consultants that were on the panel, and they were talking about data centers”, he recalls. They also discussed the I-81 corridor through Pennsylvania, home to various large data centers. And they inquired as to whether our communities might be able to handle some of these investments. And the consultant was like, here’s kind of what it takes”.
What it takes, it turns out, is a lot of work: flat land, plenty of power, fiber connectivity, and a workforce that can wire and weld. As luck would have it, there are about twice as many welders in the area as there are in coal mines, which is logical because wherever there are metal and stress, which is where the people who keep it all from falling apart, are the ones who keep it all from falling apart.
The old infrastructure is still there too, substations, hardened ground, cooling systems, and power-hungry hardware just waiting to be switched back on. A data center or some other piece of the puzzle might be a part of it, Kirk said.
So Kirk claims at the conference that when the panel was finished and the floor was beginning to elicit questions, he asked the one he couldn’t stop thinking about.
” You know, 50, 60 years ago it would take a room bigger than my office to power a computer, and now I’ve got a computer I carry around in my pocket that’s more advanced than what we sent astronauts to the moon with”, he recalls asking. Are these data centers going to keep occupying million-square-foot buildings with 30- and 40-foot ceilings, or will there be an abundance of warehouse or industrial-scale structures that we won’t be able to maintain?
He claims that the consultant didn’t have a solid response. ” And that’s the thing”, Kirk says. We are unsure of what the future holds for this subject.
Nina McCoy doesn’t like that kind of ambiguity. She’s a former high school biology teacher from Inez, a coal town made famous in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson used it to generate support for his War on Poverty.
She claims that” this is going to sound awful,” but that if they’re putting it here, that means it’s bad. We’ve lived here for a long time, and we can tell you how it operates. You put those things that you don’t want in your neighborhood in a place like this”.
Her skepticism is based on her own experience: In October 2000, a massive coal slurry spill from a mine site upstream poisoned the Coldwater Fork stream, which she lives in. For months, Inez residents were unable to drink water from the tap.
” Those of us living downstream didn’t hear about it for a while, but the school system had to close down for about a week until they got an alternate water source”, she says.
Many people in Inez still don’t trust the tap water, even today.
So when McCoy hears all the talk about AI, she also hears yet another promise that comes with a price. ” We’ve allowed these people to be called job creators”, she said. We bow down to them and let them tell us what they are going to do to our community because they create jobs, regardless of whether it’s AI or crypto or whatever. They are profit-makers, not job creators.
And the profit leaves a footprint.
A ChatGPT search uses up to 10 times more energy than a regular Google search, and AI data centers run hot. These facilities use billions of gallons of water each year to keep them cool. Most of that evaporates, but residents are wary because they have had problems with facilities and their runoff in the past, so they worry these new facilities could affect fish and disrupt the land. The very things that Kentuckyns hope to preserve.
Still, some residents see potential and even progress.
” AI is in everything that we do”, said Wes Hamilton, a local entrepreneur who did his fair share of crypto mining in Kentucky in its heyday. Everything you can imagine has AI in it, he said,” Siri, ChatGPT, robotics.” Bitcoin is a one-trick pony, according to the saying. You create it. The machine’s owner is the only one who is paid.
Hamilton asserts that there is a direction forward that will bring in investors, engineers, and possibly even businesses who are willing to stay. All the AI people in the world would be steaming into Kentucky, Hamilton says. And he claims this is different from how he admits to losing money in previous crypto ventures.
Legislators provided generous tax breaks when Bitcoin first became available to entice miners. Companies investing more than$ 1 million were exempted from paying sales taxes on hardware and electricity. Then, in March 2025, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear signed a” Bitcoin Rights” bill into law.
The legislation, which is intended to defend personal financial freedom, aims to enshrine the use of digital assets in Kentucky. An earlier draft went further, aiming to bar local governments from using zoning laws to restrict crypto mining operations—a provision that drew resistance from environmental groups. That language was eventually tempered, but the goal is still to show that digital extraction can continue to grate in Kentucky.
Which is why we were stranded outside of this Campton facility and staring at this semicircle of metal structures that were perched in the trees. The mines run all night and all day, even Sundays. And the question that some people are currently asking is whether bitcoin mining in Kentucky gets a second wind given that bitcoin is currently valued at around$ 100, 000 and big miners are discussing switching to artificial intelligence.
Mohawk’s bitcoin mining may even resume. Anna Whites said the parties are supposed to go into arbitration May 12th. She expressed her optimism to us. I’m hoping that they will say,” Mighty nice plant you have there,” before going back to their seats. Let’s just go ahead and turn it on.'”
