It’s been all over the news recently that mining Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency in general, is a very energy-demanding task, to the detriment of that beaten-but-still-standing old horse we call the environment.
Over the weekend, Elon Musk and several other “leading Bitcoin miners in North America” had formed a “Bitcoin Mining Council” dedicated to addressing the sustainability issues surrounding Bitcoin mining.
Musk and Co(uncil)
Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2021
Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO, tweeted yesterday that he was, “pleased to host a meeting between Elon Musk & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America”. He announced the forming of a Bitcoin Mining Council that would promote transparency regarding the energy used to mine Bitcoin, as well as, “accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.”
Musk called the meeting, “Potentially promising.” Exactly how promising remains to be seen. He recently backtracked on the usage of Bitcoin to purchase Tesla vehicles due to its environmental toll. In case you’re not in the know, in a nutshell, running a rig (or slew of rigs) to mine Bitcoin uses a pretty substantial amount of electricity.
Saylor named dropped several companies, including Galaxy, Argo Blockchain, Hive Blockchain, and Riot Blockchain, that were apparently involved in the call. Galaxy confirmed to Bloomberg that it had a representative present, and The Verge reports that several of the other named companies tweeted their support too. Each riffed similarly about pushing for sustainability and transparency.
Up until Tesla’s backtrack and accompanying tweet last week, conversations about Bitcoin’s significant environmental cost have been rather scarce. Now that it’s in vogue, hopefully, we’ll see movement towards a more future-friendly future currency.