White House Working on Policy to Lower Bitcoin Energy Use

The White House is working on policy recommendations to control Bitcoin energy consumption and carbon footprints in the United States, Bloomberg Law reported Thursday.

The move comes after a series of complaints from critics instigating that Bitcoin’s high energy consumption for mining operations is endangering the country’s environmental goals while straining its national grid. 

Digital Assets Should Be Energy Free 

Costa Samaras, the White House Chief Advisor for Energy Policy, noted that if digital assets are going to be part of the financial ecosystem then it has to be climate and energy free. 

“It’s important, if this is going to be part of our financial system in any meaningful way, that it’s developed responsibly and minimizes total emissions. When we think about digital assets, it has to be climate and energy conservation,” Samaras said.

The Bitcoin energy use policy is expected to be released in August, however, there is no clear position on whether the law will be passed immediately. 

Global Crackdown on PoW Digital Assets

Cryptocurrency mining refers to the use of powerful machines to solve high computational puzzles to create blocks on the blockchain.

Bitcoin, for instance, uses a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm that requires high energy consumption to verify and process transactions.

Decentralized assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which use extensive power to verify transactions, have been a cause of concern for some regulators around the world. 

China, for example, has outlawed crypto mining operations after launching a massive crackdown on all crypto mining facilities in the region in Q4 2021.

Similarly, in March, the New York State Assembly’s Conversation Committee passed a bill to ban Bitcoin mining operations in the region for two years.  However,  the law is still awaiting approval from members of the Assembly and Senate. It will also need to be approved by the state’s governor. 

In the same month, Coinformania reported that a group of climate change activities known as Greenpeace launched a campaign against Bitcoin and its environmental effects. 

The campaign dubbed “Change The Code, Not The Climate“ received $5 million in funding from Ripple’s chairman Chris Larsen, 

The EU parliament also passed a proposal to limit the use of PoW crypto assets, however, the bill was rejected with 34 -24 votes apart.