Seven years ago, Gladys Anderson bought her dream home in Bono, Arkansas. “We moved here to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the noise,” she said. “Just peace and quiet, country life.”

But last May, the silence ended when the noise began. “It was like torture, like a military-grade form of torture,” she said.

It’s the sound of 17,000 computer fans in a Bitcoin facility next door.

Neighbor Shane Markuson takes frequent decibel readings. “Eighty-two was the highest number,” he said. [Note, a hair dryer is 90 decibels.]

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“It has caused me hearing problems, blood pressure problems, and my girlfriend, who has migraine headaches,” Markuson said.

Residents can’t even move. “I don’t know who would want to buy my house or my house,” Markuson said. “You know, with that kind of noise, would you want to live near it?”

Anderson said he contacted authorities about the noise: “I spoke to the county judge’s office, I spoke to the county administrator, I called the governor’s office several times. And I know hundreds of other people called about it.”

Asked why she thought nothing was done, Anderson replied: “Money. It’s money.”

Noise from an open-pit bitcoin mining operation in Bono, Arkansas has prompted residents to take legal action. CBS News

And it is money, specifically cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is a digital currency without a centralized bank. Instead, transactions are confirmed by huge banks of computers, run by people called miners. As an incentive to create these facilities, the system periodically rewards miners with newly minted bitcoins worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But all these computers consume impressive amounts of energy – and make a lot of noise.

Last year, Arkansas passed what became known as the “Right to Mine” bill. It prevents local communities from regulating these operations.

Republican State Senator Joshua Bryant was the bill’s primary sponsor. “We have a business-friendly state,” he said. “We have cheap land. We have affordable energy. And that’s the perfect combination to be a cheap date for this industry.”

Bryant figured bitcoin mining would be good for the state, but there were some unintended consequences. “What we discovered is that operators began operating in a way that did not provide peace of mind to neighbors.” He points out that not all bitcoin factories are noisy.

Arkansas Bitcoin miner Ben Smith says mining plants can be very quiet – cooled by water rather than fans, built away from residential areas and completely enclosed rather than open air. “I would say probably half of the websites in Arkansas are owned by bad actors,” Smith said. “It’s all about design and, honestly, how much money are you going to invest to be a good neighbor or a good actor.”

So who is building all those cheap, noisy factories? Senator Bryant says is a network of Chinese companies, with ties to the Chinese government. The New York Times reports that Chinese bitcoin mines are now operating in at least 14 states.

But the Chinese government is not the only invisible hand here. The “right to mining” bill itself was drafted by a bitcoin advocacy groupO Satoshi Action Fundthat’s pushing similar bills in at least 12 other states.

In Arkansas, even Senator Bryant admits that his bill needs fixing. “We are looking at a state law that will ultimately require that these cryptographic operations do not generate noise,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gladys Anderson and her neighbors are suing. “We created a GoFundMe; we did some raffles,” she said. “We recently sold smoked pork butts.”

Lawyers for the Bono plant say the volume is within local limits and said in a statement to “CBS Sunday Morning” that “Our client is currently developing design plans to fully close the site…in a matter of months.”

Well, that’s good, because Gladys Anderson isn’t going to give up: “I’m a very stubborn, very dismissive woman,” she said. “I will become a big headache for them because they are settling everywhere.”

Editor’s note:

An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated that “at least 50 bitcoin mining plants are planned” in Arkansas.

In fact, as of April 14, 2024, when this story originally aired, at least 50 counties in Arkansas had passed laws to restrict the sound level emitted by bitcoin mines.

For more information:

Story produced by Amol Mhatre. Editor: Mike Levine.

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David Pogue

David Pogue is a six-time Emmy winner for his stories on “CBS Sunday Morning,” where he has been a correspondent since 2002. He is also a New York Times bestselling author, a five-time TED speaker and host of 20 NOVA science specials . on PBS. For 13 years, he wrote a technology column in the New York Times every week — and for 10 years, a column in Scientific American every month.

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