After Part 1 of this series ran, a fair question came back from readers: if Data Factory's founders and investors are French, why are they building Bitcoin mining operations in Texas instead of France? Why not mine Bitcoin at home?
It is exactly the right question. And the documented answer tells Henderson County residents something important -- not just about Data Factory, but about the entire business model of foreign-funded Bitcoin mining in rural America.
Bitcoin mining is legal in France. It is not banned, not restricted, not prohibited. French entrepreneurs are free to mine Bitcoin on French soil.
They just cannot make it profitable there. And the documented reasons why it is unprofitable in France are the exact same reasons it is profitable in Texas -- at someone else's expense.
Bitcoin mining is not a technology business in the traditional sense. It is an energy arbitrage business. The mining hardware -- ASIC computers running 24 hours a day -- does one thing: convert electricity into Bitcoin. The less you pay for electricity, the more profit you make. That is the entire model.
The gap in commercial electricity rates is the heart of it. A Bitcoin mining operation paying 8 cents per kWh in Texas makes dramatically more money running the same hardware doing the same work as a facility paying 18 cents per kWh in France. At Data Factory's planned 60 MW Athens build-out, that electricity cost difference could amount to tens of millions of dollars annually.
Data Factory's own chairman Richard Détente highlighted the ERCOT demand-response benefit specifically on LinkedIn, noting that Data Factory can cut its power load within 5 minutes during grid peaks and gets paid by the grid operator for doing so. That program does not exist at comparable scale in France or anywhere in Europe. In Texas it turns what would otherwise be a pure cost into a partial revenue stream.
Bitcoin mining is not only economically difficult in France. It is politically unwelcome.
In June 2025 -- just months ago -- the French National Assembly rejected a proposal that would have merely studied the possibility of using France's surplus nuclear electricity for Bitcoin mining. Not approved it. Not funded it. Studied it. The French parliament said no to even looking at the idea.
The European Commission has advised EU member states to cut tax incentives for crypto miners and reduce the power consumption of mining operations. Sweden eliminated Bitcoin mining tax incentives in 2023, effectively ending its mining industry. Norway is moving toward restrictions. The EU's MiCA regulation, now in force, imposes strict registration and oversight requirements on crypto operations that simply do not exist in Texas.
Professional Bitcoin miners in France are taxed on profits as "industrial and commercial income" at progressive rates that can reach 60 percent at the top bracket. In Texas, there is no state income tax. On crypto profits or on anything else.
This is not an accident or a coincidence. Texas politicians have spent years building the infrastructure of incentives specifically designed to attract the operations that Europe has decided not to host.
In October 2021, then-Governor Greg Abbott hosted the Texas Blockchain Council at the governor's mansion and tweeted that Texas would soon be the "#1 state for blockchain and cryptocurrency." That was not an idle boast. It was a policy commitment that translated into tax abatements, grid access, and regulatory forbearance that have made Texas the dominant location for Bitcoin mining on the planet.
Europe watched this and made a different choice. The European Commission specifically advised member states to stop offering the kinds of incentives Texas has built its mining dominance on.
Here is the plain language version of what the documented record shows:
France and Europe decided that large-scale Bitcoin mining creates costs -- to electricity grids, to water supplies, to neighboring communities -- that outweigh the economic benefits to those communities. They have moved to restrict or discourage it.
Texas decided differently. Texas said: bring it here, we will give you tax breaks, cheap power access, and minimal regulation.
The result is that French entrepreneurs raised money from French investors and moved the operation to Texas -- to a regulatory environment their own government would not provide -- where the costs and risks land on Texas communities rather than French ones.
Henderson County residents are being asked to absorb the water risk, the noise risk, the contamination risk, and the grid cost that French regulations were designed to prevent from landing on French communities.
This is not an accusation of wrongdoing. Data Factory is operating legally. Texas's incentive structure is a policy choice made by elected officials. French investors seeking returns in a lower-tax, lower-regulation environment is rational economic behavior.
But Henderson County residents deserve to understand the full picture when they are deciding what protections to demand before a permit is issued. The question is not only whether Data Factory will be a good neighbor. The question is whether the ordinances Athens adopts are strong enough to protect residents if it is not -- and whether those protections are enforceable against a company whose decision-makers and investors are based in a country with no obligation to the people of Henderson County.
The U.S. government has already recognized that foreign-owned Bitcoin mining operations near military installations pose national security risks. The Treasury Department, in coordination with the Department of Defense, expanded CFIUS authority -- the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States -- specifically to review foreign-owned crypto mining sites near sensitive military locations.
That authority exists because policymakers recognized something Henderson County residents should also recognize: a foreign-owned operation controlling significant electrical infrastructure in an American community is not the same as a domestically owned one. The accountability structures are different. The enforcement options are different. And the incentives to protect the community rather than the investors are different.
Athens is not near a military installation. The CFIUS rules would not apply here. But the underlying logic -- that foreign ownership of energy-intensive infrastructure creates accountability gaps that American communities cannot easily close -- applies directly to what Henderson County is being asked to approve.
Data Factory chose Texas because Texas offers what France refuses: cheap electricity, zero state income tax, generous tax abatements, minimal environmental oversight, and a political culture that recruits rather than regulates the industry.
France and Europe decided those costs -- to grids, to water, to communities -- were not worth accepting. Texas decided otherwise. And the community that absorbs those costs is not Paris. It is Athens, Texas.
Henderson County residents did not make that policy choice. Their elected officials did -- or are being asked to. The public hearing Monday night was the first moment those residents had a real voice in it. It should not be the last.
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