For luxury brands, usual business and marketing practices work upside down. While other businesses aim to scale, optimize and become accessible — luxury brands are supposed to be a cold and beautiful dream, causing admiration and (rarely fulfilled) desires of ownership. Building a luxury brand takes generations of storytelling, and the skill of maintaining a fragile balance between making profits and remaining exclusive, one-of-a-kind perfection. This paradigm has shifted with the trends of the modern era, in which a successful business should be data-driven and community-driven. Digitalization aims to democratize everything from finance to art, and luxury brands need to …

New York locals are accusing Greenidge Generation’s gas-fired Bitcoin mining plant of heating Seneca Lake in upstate New York. On a daily basis, the Greenidge plant is permitted to withdraw 139 million gallons of water from the lake and discharge 134 million gallons of water. The plant is also allowed to discharge water with a temperature of up to 108 degrees Fahrenheit (F) in the winter, and up to 86F in the summer. The residents of Dresden have expressed concern over the rising temperatures of the lake. The sustainability of trout species that populate the lake is a key concern …

The global Bitcoin mining sector has reached a 56% sustainable power mix in Q2, according to estimates from a Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) report. “Bitcoin mining uses a negligible amount of energy, is rapidly becoming more efficient, and is powered by a higher mix of sustainable energy than any major country or industry,” a July 1 press release from the council stated. The estimate was based on a three question survey of just 32% of the miners on the network. It found respondents “are currently utilizing electricity with a 67% sustainable power mix” which it used as the basis for …

Over the years, Bitcoin has been able to overcome naysayers by frequently reinventing its narrative. Because Bitcoin (BTC) is multifaceted, it is able to quickly change to confront new criticism. We have seen this over the years. For example, Bitcoin used to be frequently assailed by the media for its volatility — many articles pushed the notion that Bitcoin was too volatile to ever succeed as a currency. We do not hear too much about Bitcoin’s volatility today, in part because observers have been accustomed to its frequent price swings, but mostly because “Bitcoiners” have coalesced around the notion of …

In a little more than 40,000 days — or over a hundred years — we have gone from the first terrestrial flight to the first flight on another planet. Within that short time, the amount of fuel burned and, unfortunately, even lives lost have been immense. In exchange, flight has completely transformed everything from commerce to warfare and has led to the birth of completely new industries. As aviation progressed, fuel efficiency improved and mortality rates also dropped immensely. In the digital realm, blockchain technology could be equally as transformative, with applications in everything from trade, exchange, cooperation, identity, and …

A proposed crypto mining ban calling for a forced three-year hiatus on all mining operations in New York has been watered down — and will now allow green projects. The bill passed in the senate on June 8, and has now been referred to the state assembly. If the bill is passed in the assembly, it will be delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo to either approve or veto the proposed legislation. The initial New York Senate Bill 6486A sought to halt all crypto mining for three years in order to conduct environmental impact reviews on mining operations in the tri-state …

Spanish-based seafood firm, Nueva Pescanova Group, has announced its working with IBM to utilize its Food Trust platform — a distributed ledger technology platform designed for supply chain traceability. According to a June 8 announcement from IBM, the partnership is already underway, with Nueva Pescanova utilizing blockchain technology to track shrimp fishing in Argentina and prawn cultivation in Ecuador. In the announcement, Ignacio González, the CEO of the Nueva Pescanova Group, stated the tracability platform will help the firm in meeting the United Nation’s Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (DGST) standards, stating: “We want to offer our consumers all over …

While writing the world's most famous white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto defined the Bitcoin (BTC) mining process. It was established that the minting of new coins would take place through proof-of-work. To carry out this verification and to be able to mine the cryptocurrency, computers would need to solve complex mathematical calculations. In the beginning, there were not many miners. However, that changed before the first Bitcoin bull run. Mining competition skyrocketed, causing a sharp increase in the cost of machines capable of competing. Even more importantly, energy demand exploded with the new machines — which needed energy mainly for processing …

Canadian light electric vehicle manufacturer Daymak has announced an upcoming electric car that can mine Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE) — when it’s charging or parked. According to the manufacturer’s Tuesday announcement, the “Spiritus” electric car is set to roll out in 2023, and will come fitted with “an industry-leading GPU in mining price-to-profit.” However, details are sparse on what the specific capabilities of the mining hardware are. “Daymak Spiritus the first car in history with mining hardware and cryptocurrency technology programmed into the user interface,” the announcement stated. Every Spiritus will be an “environmentally-friendly crypto miner node,” …

Is it possible to mine Bitcoin (BTC) using only 100% renewable energy sources and deliver the same economic returns as those using carbon-based sources? The answer is yes, according to Square’s recent analysis on the cost of renewables and their impact on Bitcoin mining. Unfortunately for our industry, the number of headlines and headline-making tweets about Bitcoin’s energy use and potential environmental impact has followed its rise in value in recent months. The increased media scrutiny has led to increased calls for regulatory action and even a proposed bill in the New York State Senate that would place a three-year …

MicroStrategy CEO, Michael Saylor has explained the details and thinking behind the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council. The council was formed on May 25 after Saylor brokered a successful meeting between Elon Musk and several top North American Bitcoin mining firms. The miners involved will provide current and planned renewable usage transparency, and will lobby other mining operations across the globe to do so as well Michael Saylor describing the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council and @ElonMusk's shared interest in seeing #Bitcoin succeed: pic.twitter.com/7MfODadi8p — Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) May 25, 2021 Speaking at the virtual Consensus 2021 conference, …

Establishing responsible cobalt sourcing practices has become a major focus of attention for human rights groups, environmental researchers and others in recent years. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, where over 70% of the world's cobalt is sourced, experts have cast a spotlight on severe human rights risks across many mining operations. Meanwhile, under-regulated deep-sea mining to extract cobalt and nickel has sparked profound concern amongst experts about its environmentally destructive impact. A new announcement by world-leading miners Glencore, CMOC and Eurasian Resources Group, together with battery material supplier Umicore, suggests corporate actors are looking to blockchain technologies …