> In Upstate New York, where a quarter of US crypto mining takes place, the researchers find that electricity rates have gone up in response to rising demand. Their study demonstrates that because of bitcoin mining’s power usage, households paid an additional $165 million a year in energy costs, while businesses paid an extra $79 million. In China, where more than two-thirds of the world’s crypto mining took place over the past decade, electricity rates are set by the government and inflexible to demand. Crypto miners there were crowding other industries out of the market and forcing electricity to be rationed, the research suggests.

So correlation implies causation?

I'm not sure if the study is just flawed or the article is doing an especially bad job of explaining it.

I won't be reading the paper because of this:

> Benetton and Compiani received financial support from Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. Ripple Labs supports the cryptocurrency XRP.

XRP is a scam run by Ripple labs. The company routinely mis-states the utility of XRP.