Tech Racket - Inside the "nightmare" health crisis of a Texas Bitcoin-mining town

More than 40 people in the Granbury area reported a medical ailment that they believe is connected to the arrival of the Bitcoin mine. Studies have shown that human-caused noise pollution harms animals and wildlife, causing oxidative stress and memory loss in rodents, acute anxiety in dogs, and a decrease in forest growth

- By Andrew R. Chow - Photographs by Jake Dockins for Time

One evening in december 2023, 43-year-old Sarah Rosenkranz collapsed in her home in Granbury, Texas, and was rushed to the emergency room. Her heart pounded 200 beats per minute; her blood pressure spiked into hypertensive crisis; her skull throbbed. "It felt like my head was in a pressure vise being crushed," she says. "That pain was worse than childbirth."

Rosenkranz's headache lasted for five days. Doctors gave her several rounds of IV medication and painkiller shots, but nothing seemed to knock down the pain, she says. This was odd, especially because local doctors were similarly vexed when Indigo, Rosenkranz's 5-year-old daughter, was taken to urgent care earlier that year, screaming that she felt a "red beam behind her eardrums."

Constable John Shirley in Ganbury

It didn't occur to Sarah that these symptoms could be linked. But in January 2024, she walked into a town hall in Granbury and found a room full of people worn thin from strange, debilitating illnesses. A mother said her 8-year-old daughter was losing her hearing and fluids were leaking from her ears. Several women said they experienced fainting spells, including while driving on the highway. Others said they were racked by debilitating vertigo and nausea, waking up in the middle of the night midvomit.

None of them knew what, exactly, was causing these symptoms. But they all shared a singular grievance: a dull aural hum had crept into their lives, rattling their windows and rendering them unable to sleep. The hum, local law enforcement had learned, was emanating from a Bitcoin-mining facility that had recently moved into the area-and was exceeding legal noise ordinances on a daily basis.