Dorsey, Saylor Defend Bitcoin Mining in Letter to EPA
Bitcoin Industry Challenges House Democrats
Some of Bitcoin's most ardent supporters have banded together to defend Proof-of-Work mining.
Bitcoin industry executives responded to a request from House Democrats questioning the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining in a letter sent to EPA Chair Michael S. Regan on Monday.
Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA) and 22 other members of Congress have asked the EPA to ensure that cryptocurrency mining operations do not violate key environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. In response, 55 Bitcoin industry heavyweights, including Block CEO Jack Dorsey, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, and Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz, worked together to rebut the House Democrats' assertion that bitcoin mining had a negative impact on the environment.
The rebuttal refutes key allegations stated in Huffman's letter to the EPA, which was sent on April 20. The initial letter confounded Bitcoin mining data centres with power generation facilities, which was a major source of worry. "Power plants aren't data centres," says the author. The reply argued that "datacenters containing'miners' are no different than datacenters owned and managed by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft." The letter claimed that a crypto mining company powered by a facility in Greenidge, New York, does not currently use coal in its operations. As a result, assertions that Greenbridge's coal ash ponds are the product of contemporary crypto mining operations are untrue.
In addition, the response refutes assertions that the cryptocurrency mining sector produces massive amounts of technological garbage. According to today's notice, Huffman's letter claimed that Bitcoin mining generates 30,700 tonnes of e-waste annually; however, such statistics were based on a widely panned research study that assumed mining rigs would need to be discarded after an "extremely short" 1.3-year timeframe.
The newest poll results from the Bitcoin Mining Council are also mentioned in the letter. Bitcoin miners polled consume 64.6 percent sustainable energy, according to the study, which included a bottom-up review of 50 percent of the current hashrate. By extrapolating this data globally and using cautious assumptions, it's projected that sustainable energy today powers 58.4 percent of all mining.
Today isn't the first time that well-known figures like Jack Dorsey have advocated for ecologically friendly Bitcoin mining. Dorsey teamed up with Tesla's Elon Musk in early April to develop plans for a solar-powered Bitcoin mining plant in Texas.
While today's letter represents a substantial rebuttal to Bitcoin's critics, the debate over crypto mining's environmental impact is far from done. It remains to be seen whether the argument will influence the EPA's decision to continue its inquiry into crypto mining.