Key facts:
Bitcoin mining would be taking energy away from other industries, considers the White House.
White House could encourage investors not to participate in Bitcoin mining.
The White House, under US President Joe Biden, is contemplating taking a stand on the environmental impact and energy consumption of Bitcoin mining.
According to Costa Samaras, principal assistant in the energy section for the White House Office of Science and Technology Regulation, “when talking about digital assets, there should be a conversation about climate and energy”he said in statements collected by the US media Bloomberg.
The publication establishes that, for the month of August 2022, a comprehensive study or report on the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining as Bitcoinas a recommendation for legislators to create new regulations around this activity.
However, it is not clear if the Biden administration itself will issue legislation or decree, since the authorities in charge of the energy sector do not usually directly regulate this industry, they explain.
Samaras considers that possible statements from the White House could pressure investors not to participate in the bitcoin mining and cryptocurrencies, unless environmental regulations are met.
What will the White House study be about?
Although the federal government is oriented towards an environmental policy and has reservations about the impact of Bitcoin mining, It also makes some concessions regarding the levels of security that are obtained thanks to the Proof of Work or Proof Of Work.
We need to think about what would be the appropriate regulatory response in a world that is migrating to Proof of Stake. [Proof of Stake], or a world that has a continuous mix between Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. Proof of Work is by design energy intensive, but it also increases security.
Costa Samaras, Assistant to the Department of Energy of the White House.
The study will seek to find out what are the different points for and against mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, from an environmental and energy point of view.
Some of the aspects to study are environmental and noise pollution, what percentage of oil production facilities are being reactivated to house miners, and what load of electricity consumption is being generated, according to Samaras.
For his part, a professor from the University of California, consulted by Bloomberg, assured that last year the electrical load generated by mining cryptocurrencies in the state of New York caused an increase in the price of electricity in domestic environments and also for small businesses.
Faced with this Bloomberg report, the analyst Nick Carter noted that prohibiting or restricting Bitcoin mining would generate the opposite effect of what is intended to be achievedraising the demand for Proof of Work as a means of investment, establishing historical parallels with gold mining and its commercialization.
You could replace gold with some carbon-free fiat substitute (such as Proof of Stake). Would everyone adopt her then? No. Going completely into fiat increased the demand for gold tremendously. Moving to fiat meant that businesses and individual investors chose to buy gold to deal with fiat volatility..
Nick Carter.
He also assured that in his opinion, “the current administration thinks that renewable energy is also bad, since it would take green energy away from other industries that need it, although they are seriously confused.”
Last March 2022, Joe Biden issued an executive order to regulate Bitcoin at the federal level, which despite being based mainly on financial aspects, could also lead to legislative moves focused on issues of the environment and energy consumption, reported CryptoNews.