Bitcoin environmental battles heat up in US
bitcoin prices breaking new records in recent months, fights over the cryptocurrency's energy usage and environmental impact are escalating across the United States.
President Joe Biden's administration is demanding the industry disclose how much electricity mining operations use, while cryptocurrency groups are pushing for legislation to shield mines from local regulations that limit their expansion.
Bitcoins are awarded to miners competing against each other to complete energy-intensive computations.
Bitcoin underwent what is known as «halving» on April 19 — cutting by half the rewards cryptocurrency miners receive for creating new tokens, making it more expensive for them to put new bitcoins into circulation.
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View Details» How that will affect bitcoin production and its energy use is not yet clear, but miners have been buying up equipment to prepare for more intense competition.
«We are not going to meet our clean energy goals if we continue to incentivize this kind of electricity use,» said Mandy DeRoche, a lawyer at the environmental group
