Vancouver Explores Becoming 'Bitcoin-Friendly City' Despite Province-Wide Mining Ban

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.

British Columbia's bitcoin mining ban, which began in December 2022, is still in place until December 2025. The ban was put in place by the provincial government to address energy concerns.

A legal challenge to the ban was filed by Conifex Timber, a forest products company that had planned to open bitcoin mining operations in the province. The B.C. Supreme Court upheld the ban in early 2024, ruling that the government's policy was reasonable and aligned with public utility regulations.

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

A motion was introduced to Vancouver's City Council by Mayor Ken Sim, which aimed to explore the possibility of making the city more bitcoin-friendly. The motion highlighted the financial benefits of bitcoin and mentioned the advantages of bitcoin mining.

However, the city's efforts to promote bitcoin mining are limited by provincial electricity regulations and the fact that BC Hydro falls under provincial jurisdiction.

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

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

The updated Act notably empowers the provincial government to bypass the BC Utilities Commission, which is the Provincial electricity regulator, and grants the government direct authority to regulate electricity service specifically for crypto.

Conifex Timber, which had bitcoin mining farms in the province that were slated for connection to the grid, argued in court that these conditions were "unduly discriminatory and unreasonable."

Ultimately, a Provincial judge disagreed with these claims, and the conditions remained in place.

"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, noted in a May 2024 post.

During the debate over the updated Act, lawyers from McCarthy Tetrault highlighted that the leader of the provincial Green Party argued in the legislature that Liquified Natural Gas and emerging technologies like AI should face energy regulations similar to bitcoin mining.

This push was driven by the party's stance on the high energy use and limited economic benefits of these industries.

Local bitcoin mining bans are not an uncommon occurrence in various jurisdictions across the country. For instance, New York State has a moratorium on bitcoin mining, with an exception for renewable energy.

On the other hand, some states, like Arkansas and Montana, have bills that protect bitcoin miners from what they describe as "discrimination."

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