Energy Financial News

Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG), a crypto mining company in Pennsylvania, is turning waste from old power plants into energy to power hundreds of Bitcoin mining rigs.

Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas has come out with a bold statement about the impact Bitcoin mining will have not just on his state but on the United States as a whole.

Brussels will slash by two-thirds the European Union's reliance on Russian gas in response to the war in Ukraine, the European Commission announced on Tuesday.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty has made another jump, hitting a new all-time high (ATH) – the third one in a row.

Bitcoin (BTC) miners are increasingly turning to creative methods to become more efficient, while at the same time attempting to improve the image of the electricity-guzzling industry. The new initiatives come as the difficulty of mining new BTC is already at it its highest level ever, and is expected to reach yet another all-time high in less than a day.

El Salvador, the first nation to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender, has recently announced the relaunch of its wallet app Chivo, which is supposed to patch the previous version’s stability and scalability issues. The update is welcomed news for the Central American country’s crypto experiment, which faced some hurdles and harsh criticism over the last few months. While much of the observers’ attention has been focused on aspects such as retail adoption of crypto and geopolitical implications of Bitcoin’s legal status in El Salvador, the progress of the nation’s mining industry toward achieving President Bukele’s moonshot vision has been less discussed lately. Here’s what the current prospects of El Salvador’s mining industry look like.

The US Mayor who became known in the Cryptoverse as a Bitcoin (BTC) supporter and industry ally is now opposing crypto mining, citing high energy consumption. Meanwhile, a billionaire urges the state to get rid of BitLicense "right away."

Determined to reduce the carbon footprint of his Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations and cut his electricity bill, Polish miner Paweł Wojciechowski started using photovoltaic (PV) modules to mine the crypto, allocating the excess heat to warm the water in his household. Amid surging demand for his know-how, Wojciechowski has decided to commercialize the technology.

The government of Kazakhstan has unveiled a package of measures aimed at further taxing the nation’s Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto mining sector. The measures will involve tax hikes on electricity, a crackdown on unregistered miners, a tax on mining hardware, and the introduction of VAT charges on mining-related equipment sales.

Energy bills UK households are set to rocket by more than €800 a year, it was announced on Thursday.

On Jan. 27, a group of eight U.S. lawmakers, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, sent letters to the world’s six largest Bitcoin mining companies, demanding to reveal the detailed data on their electricity consumption. This isn’t the first time Senator Warren requested this information from a mining operation — last month a similar letter was sent to Greenidge Generation, which uses a natural gas plant to power its facility.

It was only a matter of time before China slapped a ban on Bitcoin (BTC) mining, trading and crypto services. To do anything with Bitcoin anywhere in the People’s Republic, one needs a special exemption. The Chinese government’s given reason for the Bitcoin crackdown is to reduce its well-documented climate impact. Regardless of the amount of truth in this explanation, one thing is clear: China’s righteous anger toward electricity-guzzling and carbon-spewing mined cryptocurrencies in the service of Earth’s climate is only the first shot in an impending global showdown over Bitcoin and other crypto projects that rely on proof-of-work (PoW), the complicated crypto security mechanism we subsume under “mining.” This does not seem like a battle crypto can or will win.

The Bitcoin (BTC) mining network contributed less than 0.08% to the world’s total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to digital asset investing firm CoinShares. Data obtained by the company suggests that BTC mining is responsible for a marginal share of the global CO2 emissions, in particular when compared with the variety of services that are facilitated by the use of the cryptocurrency.

Five industry experts appearing before the United States House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee had different views on how lawmakers should address the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies.

The percentage of the global Bitcoin mining industry running on renewable power increased by 1% to 58.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021 according to new data.

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 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.

The European Commission unveiled on Friday night a draft green label for nuclear and gas power plants, which aims to facilitate the financing of facilities that help combat climate change.

The government of Kazakhstan is debating a plan to build a nuclear power plant that could help the country to strengthen its Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto mining sector in the longer term. 

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.”

Russian crypto miners say they want their industry to be legalized – and hope that official status could help them avoid spats with power providers.