While state officials and legislators have positioned Texas to be “the bitcoin mining capital of the world,” in small towns like Granbury, working-class residents living next to giant, loud, environmentally destructive data centers are the ones paying the price for Texas’s crypto boom. “None of us are sleeping,” Cheryl Shadden, a Granbury resident who lives across the street from a 300-megawatt bitcoin mining data center owned by Marathon Digital, tells TRNN. “We can't get rid of this alien invasion in our homes…This is like being a prisoner of war. It's like being tortured with loud sounds and bright lights and being sleep deprived.” 

In this episode of Working People, we dive deeper into the reality of living next to crypto mining data centers like the one in Granbury, the unseen threats they pose to human and nonhuman life, and what residents in Granbury are doing to fight back. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with: Cheryl Shadden, a registered nurse anesthetist and resident of Granbury, who lives right next to the site of the Marathon bitcoin mining operation; Dr. Shannon Wolf, Precinct Chair in Hood County, who lives about 3 miles from the bitcoin mine; and Nannette Samuelson, County Commissioner for Precinct 2 in Hood County.

Additional links/info:

• Protect Hood County website
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “A bitcoin mine in Texas is “killing us slowly,” local residents say”
• Andrew R. Chow, TIME, “‘We’re living in a nightmare:’ Inside the health crisis of a Texas bitcoin town”
• Andrew R. Chow, TIME, “Noisy neighbor: Bitcoin's hidden health cost” (Video Report)
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “TRNN wins 2025 Izzy Award for coverage of East Palestine, OH, trainwreck & chemical disaster”
• Keaton Peters, Inside Climate News, “Texas leaders worry that bitcoin mines threaten to crash the state power grid”
• NBC News, “Inside the Texas bitcoin mine reportedly making residents sick”
• James Pollard, The Texas Tribune, “Texas Republicans want to make the state the center of the cryptocurrency universe”

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor


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