Crypto mining companies are making a major impact on climate change that calls for government intervention—Democratic lawmakers.
On Friday, several United States Senators and Congress members wrote a letter asking to fulfill their demands. The lawmakers argued that although they have asked for the energy consumption report from crypto mining companies, they are not enough. They outlined that it lacks some crucial information that puts limitations on the government to better understand the wider scope of crypto mining’s ill effects on the environment.
The lawmakers cited the response from several largest crypto mining firms to whom they have investigated and gathered the information of their impacts on climate. And asked Michael Regan—Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency and Jennifer Granholm—Secretary of Department of Energy that they require some more reporting from these companies on their energy usage.
However, the lawmakers said, the companies did not avail the entire information that they have asked but on the basis of information that the mining companies provided, they have reached to a conclusion at this moment. They figured out the available information clarifies that the mining operations of these companies are significant and keep growing. This could lead to a major impact on climate change and therefore there is a need for government interference.
As per their findings, out of seven bitcoin mining companies that were under the radar of lawmakers’ investigating, six of them consume enough power that could provide energy to whole Houston’s residences. These companies included Riot, Greenidge, Bitdeer, Marathon Digital, Bit Digital and Stronghold. The seventh company was Bitfury, but it was out of the list since it had not disclosed its energy consumption.
The new crypto coins get created in the process of cryptocurrency mining. For instance, the two major cryptocurrencies in the crypto market, Bitcoin (BTC) and Etheruem (ETH) both are popular when it comes to crypto mining also, since they use PoW. The mining process of proof-of-work ensures that the nodes involved in the network solve the difficult math problem while using intensive computing power.
This leads to the creation of a new unit of respective currency. It follows the notion that is to keep enforcing the scarcity coins, making it harder to produce new coins, that helps in price stability. While on the other hand it also validates the transaction such that it can’ be altered, changed or faked by any means.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/07/20/democrats-demanded-more-info-from-crypto-mining-companies-wrote-letter/