As U.S. Congress is preparing to take a thorough look at the energy use of crypto mining, the list of witnesses for the Thursday hearing contains more proponents of blockchain technology than its outright critics. The House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee announced a hearing on “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains” last week, with the event itself scheduled for Jan. 20. The focus of the hearing will be on the energy and environmental effects of crypto mining, specifically as it relates to networks that use proof-of-work, or PoW, consensus mechanism. A Committee on Energy and Commerce staff …

The first IPO for the crypto industry in 2022 comes from a Texas-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, Rhodium Enterprises. In an SEC filing made last week, Rhodium plans to offer 7.69 million shares at $12-$14 each in an initial public offering (IPO). Trading under the ticker “RHDM” on Nasdaq, 56.8 million class A and 67.5 million class B shares will be released, ultimately valuing the company at just shy of $1.7 billion. Rhodium is a cryptocurrency technology company that uses proprietary tech and liquid cooling technology to self-mine Bitcoin. Their goal is to be the most sustainable and cost-efficient producer …

The police in Kosovo have ramped up their efforts to crack down on crypto miners in the country, confiscating more than 300 mining machines on Jan. 8 alone. An announcement issued by the Kosovo police on Jan. 8 revealed that it had seized 272 “Antminer” Bitcoin mining machines in the municipality of Leposavic, and another 39 mining machines near Prishtina. Meanwhile, the police also stopped a driver carrying 6 crypto mining machines with 42 graphics cards (GPUs) near Druar, in Vushtrri. The driver has since been interviewed and released. The Minister for Economy Artane Rizvanolli tweeted her support for the …

Bitcoin influencer and podcaster Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano said that there is no need to “apologize” for Bitcoin’s energy use, because “crucial things in the world use energy.” He made the comments in a Dec 27 interview on CNBC’s morning news and talk program, “Squawk Box” with Joe Kernen. During the interview, he claimed that many people are missing “key points” in the “climate argument” against the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem, especially in terms of comparisons with fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar: “There is a linear relationship between energy consumption and the dollar system, to support more users and more transactions, …

Bitcoin (BTC) is often used to criticize all blockchain-based projects. This is understandable since Bitcoin was the first project to use a blockchain, is arguably the most recognizable and is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap. In the first half of this article, I will use Bitcoin as a proxy for all blockchain-based projects because most people associate blockchain with Bitcoin. Anything environmentally positive that can be said about Bitcoin will be doubly true for the vast majority of newer blockchain-based projects since Bitcoin uses the oldest version of blockchain technology. Blockchain energy consumption Bitcoin has been attacked for high …

A transaction on the Solana network takes less energy than two Google searches, and 24 times less energy than charging your phone, according to a Nov. 25 report by the Solana Foundation. The report states that a single transaction on its network uses 0.00051 kWh, or 1,836 Joules, of energy. According to Google, an average search uses 0.0003 kWh or 1,080 Joules of energy. Perhaps more surprisingly, the report claims the entire Solana network uses an estimated 3,186,000 kWh per year, which is equivalent to the average electricity usage of 986 American households. In May, the Solana Foundation contracted Robert …

Popular community messaging app Discord has been forced to walk back its integration plans with Ethereum (ETH)-based NFTs following strong backlash from a significant number of its user base. The pushback started on Nov. 9 after Discord’s founder and CEO Jason Citron tweeted “probably nothing” accompanied by a screenshot of the app’s user settings page that displayed an ETH logo and option to connect digital wallets such as MetaMask and Wallet Connect. Citron was then bombarded with thousands of comments calling on him to abandon the plans along with users threatening to cancel Nitro subscriptions. The crypto-skeptics asserted that NFTs …

Major players in the Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry have their sights set on nuclear energy as pressure mounts to go green. Nuclear energy could present a “tremendous opportunity” to introduce “enormous amounts of clean, carbon-free” energy to the base load, said GRIID vice president Harry Sudok at the ‘Bitcoin & Beyond Virtual Summit’ on Nov. 10. GRIDD is an American company that procures low-cost, renewable energy to build vertically-integrated Bitcoin mining facilities. According to Sudock, past subsidy programs and discourse about renewable energy have largely focused on solar and wind power and neglected to consider the potential benefits of nuclear …

Now responsible for the second biggest contribution to the Bitcoin hashrate, Kazakhstan’s energy grid may be unprepared to handle the addition of many cryptocurrency miners from China and others looking to capitalize on low cost electricity. In a Nov. 10 report from Reuters, government officials in Kazakhstan estimate that unregistered crypto miners in the country could be consuming twice as much power as those registered to avoid paying taxes and other fees. Together, all crypto miners in the country could be using as much as 1.2 gigawatts, or roughly 8% of Kazakhstan's total power generation capacity. According to Murat Zhurebekov, …

A report from the Data Center Industry & Blockchain Association of Kazakhstan, or NABDC, estimates that cryptocurrency mining could bring $1.5 billion in revenue for the country over the next five years. Currently, corporate digital currency mining activities generate about 98 billion tenge ($230M USD) per year in the country. Alan Dordzhiev, the president of the NABDC, issued the following statement as quoted by local news outlet kapital.kz: The figure of 98 billion tenge is just an economic effect from companies that are officially involved in mining. If we take into account the "gray" miners, then this figure can be …

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has been asked by a group of local businesses to deny permits for converting the city’s old fossil-fuel power plants into crypto mining centers. The request comes in the form of a letter co-signed by a number of organizations, businesses and labor groups. The letter calls for an environmental assessment for proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency mining in the state of New York while urging Governor Hochul to deny permits to convert the Greenidge Generating Station and the Fortistar North Tonawanda power plants into crypto mining facilities: “Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency mining use enormous amounts of energy to …

MintGreen, a Canada-based cleantech cryptocurrency miner, will be partnering with the Lonsdale Energy Corporation to supply heat to residents of North Vancouver in British Columbia starting in 2022. In a Thursday announcement, MintGreen said its “digital boilers” — which it claims can recover more than 96% of the electricity used for Bitcoin (BTC) mining — will prevent 20,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per megawatt from entering the atmosphere during its arrangement with North Vancouver. The recovered energy will be used to heat 100 residential and commercial buildings in the Canadian city with a population of roughly 155,000. Colin Sullivan, …