Major Bitcoin miners in North America are negotiating with Elon Musk to address crypto’s sustainability problem
Earlier, Tesla founder Elon Musk said that the Bitcoin mining process consumes too much energy, and the current major mines use non-renewable coal energy.
This is contrary to the current carbon neutrality goals set by many countries around the world. On the same day, Tesla also announced the suspension of accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for car purchases.
Bitcoin and many cryptocurrencies do have the problem of high energy consumption in the mining process. The energy consumed by the Bitcoin mining process alone is astronomical.
But the problem is of course not to avoid it but to find a way to solve it. At this time, Elon Musk used his personal influence to let the North American mines jointly use clean energy.
At present, a small number of mines in some European countries have adopted green energy for mining, but in general, the low utilization rate of green energy is almost negligible.
The reason is that the use of green energy requires investment and transformation of many infrastructures. For example, mines need to build their own wind power to meet high energy demand.
Here too, some mines cooperate with green energy providers to obtain power supply, but the prices provided by green energy providers may not be the lowest.
In some areas, the price of traditional thermal power is extremely cheap, so the profitability of mines is higher, which is the reason why too much coal resources are consumed in the current Bitcoin mining process.
However, it is not impossible for mines to use green energy if they are willing to invest their profits, but a longer transition period is required.
Including the establishment of green energy power plants around the mine site or cooperation with other suppliers to provide sufficient power supply, so in the final analysis, it is a matter of money.
Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between @elonmusk & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide. https://t.co/EHgLZ9zvDK
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) May 24, 2021
Known as the most staunch supporter of Bitcoin is Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy Incorporated. Michael Sailer posted on Twitter a few days ago that he had taken the lead in holding the meeting and invited Elon Musk to participate in discussions with major Bitcoin mining farms in North America.
The content of the discussion was how to reduce excessive fossil energy consumption in the Bitcoin mining process. The end result was that the North American miners agreed to reform the energy problem.
These mines promised to formulate and publish plans to migrate to green energy mining as soon as possible, and at the same time called on all mines around the world to switch to renewable energy.
Based on the consideration of transparency, these major mines in North America will also set up a Bitcoin mining committee to be responsible for formulating, implementing, and supervising the use of renewable energy in mines.
Elon Musk also said that there is hope for Bitcoin if the mines can use renewable energy. Now it depends on when the mines can complete the migration.
