May 14, 2024 |

Photo – Fueling vehicle – Bigfoot99 file photo

After holding steady for a week, average gasoline prices in Wyoming rose 4.1 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.31 per gallon on Monday, according to GasBuddy.com‘s survey of 494 stations in Wyoming.

Prices in Wyoming are half-cent per gallon higher than a month ago, and stand 4.8 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

According to GasBuddy price reports, the lowest price in the state on Sunday was $2.76 per gallon, while the highest was $4.29, a difference of $1.53.

Nationwide, gas prices are down 3.7 cents per gallon from last month, but still stand 6.1 cents per gallon higher than last year, according to data compiled from more than 11 million weekly price reports covering over 150,000 gas station across the country.

The national average price of diesel has fallen 4.6 cents in the last week, according to the Gas Buddy.com roundup, and now stands at $3.90 per gallon.

The United States government has ordered a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining company to stop constructing a mine in Wyoming.

According to the May 13 order signed by President Joe Biden, MineOne Cloud Computing Investment and its partners will be required to divest the property located near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

MineOne Cloud is majority-owned by China. The company acquired the land in June 2022 and was preparing to set up a crypto-mining operation.

“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that MineOne Partners Limited, a British Virgin Islands company ultimately majority owned by Chinese nationals […] might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” the order stated.

The order also requires the firm to remove all installed equipment from the site. It also bans Chinese-linked entities from accessing the site, which is situated closehttps://crypto.news/uniswap-founder-urges-democrats-to-immediately-change-bidens-approach-to-crypto/ to the U.S. air base.

MineOne has 120 days to wind up operations and sell the property. The firm is also prohibited from transferring these assets to any third party.

The mining site was initially flagged in October 2023 by tech giant Microsoft, which operated a data center in the area.

Microsoft issued an alert to the Federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, raising concerns that the site could be a “full-spectrum intelligence collection operation.”  

“We suggest the possibility that the computing power of an industrial-level crypto-mining operation, along with the presence of an unidentified number of Chinese nationals in direct proximity to Microsoft’s Data Center and one of three strategic-missile bases in the U.S., provides significant threat vectors,” Microsoft stated in its report.

The report followed an investigation by the committee that identified national security risks.

Over the past years, the U.S. has seen multiple Chinese-owned crypto-mining farms migrating to the nation following a ban in China in 2021. Some regions in the U.S. offer cheap electricity rates, which is a major selling point for these entities.

According to a New York Times report, Chinese-owned mining farms were reported in at least 12 states, including Texas, Wyoming, Arkansas, and Ohio.

Last month, the Biden government initiated a crackdown on the cryptocurrency mining sector with a 30% tax on electricity use by the miners. The move was met with criticism, with Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, claiming it would “destroy” the sector.

President Biden issued an order Monday blocking a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base, calling its proximity to the base a “national security risk.” The order forces the divestment of property operated as a crypto mining facility near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. MineOne Partners Ltd., a firm partly backed by Chinese nationals, and its affiliates are also required to remove certain equipment on the site. More, from the AP:

• This comes as the US is slated on Tuesday to issue major new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar equipment, and medical supplies imported from China, according to a US official and another person familiar with the plan.