Governor's office no longer hot on bitcoin mining
After Montana became one of the first governments willing to publicly invest in bitcoin mining last year, the governor’s economic development team is trying to distance the state from the cryptocurrency gold rush that’s making its way here.
“I think that, generally speaking, Montanans are after good, stable jobs. When a company is sort of volatile by definition, I don’t think that provides the sort of stability our workforce is looking for,” says chief business development officer Ken Fichtler.
Fichtler’s comments come a few days after Inc. magazine reported that the state was “eager to get in on the trend further” after a large bitcoin mine appeared in Bonner, with even larger ones planned in Butte and Anaconda, by actively marketing Montana as a destination for data centers, including cryptocurrency mines.
As the Indy reported Feb. 1, the governor’s office claims its position was misrepresented. Now Fichtler is drawing a distinction between the kinds of data centers Montana aims to attract and what bitcoin mines have offered.
Read more: http://missoulanews.com/news/governor-s-office-no-longer-hot-on-bitcoin-mining/article_0091af52-0794-11e8-ba0a-378112a7c89b.html