A Bitcoin Boom Fueled by Cheap Power, Empty Plants and Few Rules

Cryptocurrency miners are flocking to New York’s faded industrial towns, prompting concern over the environmental impact of huge computer farms.

A bitcoin mining operation is opening northeast of Niagara Falls this month on the site of the last working coal plant in New York State.

Across the state, a former aluminum plant in Massena, already one of the biggest cryptocurrency sites in the United States, is expanding.

And in Owego, a metal-recycling mogul with 11.3 million Instagram followers is making a gritty start-up with banks of computers in shipping containers next to a scrapyard.