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Republicans Seek to Repeal Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in Exchange for Raising US Debt Limit

Republicans Seek to Repeal Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in Exchange for Raising US Debt LimitThere has been a lot of commentary concerning the U.S. raising its debt limit, as Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said last month that a U.S. default would be “devastating,” and European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde warned it would be a “major disaster” if the U.S. defaulted on its obligations. It now appears that Republican […]

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

ESG Analyst Daniel Batten Reveals Dynamic Charts Showing Bitcoin’s 52.6% Sustainable Energy Use

ESG Analyst Daniel Batten Reveals Dynamic Charts Showing Bitcoin’s 52.6% Sustainable Energy UseEnvironmental, social, and governance (ESG) analyst Daniel Batten said Tuesday that the computational backbone of the Bitcoin network now uses 52.6% sustainable energy. Batten and onchain analyst Willy Woo created Dynamic Bitcoin ESG Charts to showcase the protocol’s progress. Contrary to Cambridge University Data, Analyst Says Bitcoin Mining Uses 52.6% Sustainable Energy These days, there […]

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

XRP Ledger To See Carbon Credit NFTs With Ripple’s New $100,000,000 Investment Fund

XRP Ledger To See Carbon Credit NFTs With Ripple’s New 0,000,000 Investment Fund

Ripple Labs is announcing a $100 million investment fund that will see carbon credit non-fungible tokens (NFTs) come to the XRP Ledger. According to a new press release, Ripple’s new initiative aims to expedite carbon removal activities and technologies as well as help streamline carbon-focused fintech and crypto projects. “The funding will continue to support […]

The post XRP Ledger To See Carbon Credit NFTs With Ripple’s New $100,000,000 Investment Fund appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

Sustainable energy usage for BTC mining grows nearly 60% in a year

The latest Bitcoin Mining Council report showed that the mining industry is rapidly adopting sustainable energy sources to secure the largest crypto blockchain.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies are further adopting green energy as the global Bitcoin mining industry increased its sustainable energy mix by approximately 59% year over year.

The Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) is group of 44 Bitcoin mining companies claiming to represent 50% of the global Bitcoin network, or 100.9 exahash (EH). It released a new report on Monday April 25 with the findings. The group is also fronted by Bitcoin proponent and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor.

The latest survey of BMC member companies questioned how much electricity their companies consumed, what percentage of that electricity is generated by hydro, wind, solar, nuclear or geothermal sources, and what the hash rate of their operations were.

The BMC estimates the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix for the top crypto is now 58.4% which is a fall of 0.1% from last quarter. Perhaps more importantly, it's significant growth from the 36.8% renewables estimated in Q1 2021.

Its worth noting however that the BMC only formed in June 2021, so it is not exactly clear how it formulated the 36.8% worth of renewables estimated in Q1 2021.

Data for the new report, which was self-reported from BMC members, showed they were utilizing electricity with a 64.6% sustainable power mix. The figures for global Bitcoin mining was estimated from the data from BMC members.

Related: Earth Day analysts say Bitcoin mining is naturally gravitating to green energy

Bitcoin has come under fire for its heavy energy usage and high carbon footprint, and the mining industry is keen to show its adoption of using greener energy sources or byproduct wasted from other operations to combat the criticism.

The figures provided by BMC contradict a February study published in the scientific journal Joules which highlighted that the Chinese ban on crypto mining contributed to a 17% increase in the carbon emissions produced by operations to sustain the Bitcoin network.

The report breaks down the total estimated energy usage by industry, alleging that global Bitcoin mining operations use 247 terawatt-hours (TWh), less than half of what gold mining operations consume, and 0.16% when compared to the world’s total energy usage.

Global Bitcoin mining vs other industries

Bitcoin mining efficiency is improving

The results on the self-reported electricity consumption and company hash rates seemingly show that mining efficiency has increased.

Over the past 12 months electricity consumption by the industry decreased by 25%, whilst the hash rate increased by 23% from 164.9 to 202.1, equaling a 63% increase of mining efficiency in the last year since Q1 2021. The BMC alleges Bitcoin mining is 5,814% more efficient than it was eight years ago.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

Tesla Ventures Into 100% Solar-Powered Bitcoin (BTC) Mining With Jack Dorsey’s Block: Report

Electric vehicle giant Tesla is reportedly teaming up with payments platform Block and blockchain tech company Blockstream to mine Bitcoin (BTC) in Texas using solar energy. According to a new report by CNBC, the trio will mine BTC using Tesla’s solar panels and proprietary battery storage packs. The mining outfit will feature an open dashboard […]

The post Tesla Ventures Into 100% Solar-Powered Bitcoin (BTC) Mining With Jack Dorsey’s Block: Report appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

US Bitcoin mining firm turns to harmful coal waste for cleaner energy

In a bid to make crypto mining more environmentally friendly, Stronghold Digital Mining is turning harmful waste from coal mining into clean energy to power Bitcoin miners.

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.

The company collects coal refuse, a leftover waste material from the process of coal mining, and burns it in what it says is an emissions-controlled environment at its energy generation facilities.

Coal refuse can cause a raft of environmental problems, such as water and air pollution, and acid mine drainage, the acidic water which comes from coal mining operations. Collecting this waste and safely disposing of it while generating power for crypto mining is a productive way of tackling the problem.

The state of Pennsylvania is the third-largest producer of coal in the United States, estimates put the amount of coal wastage at 881 pounds per 2,200 pounds mined, or 400 kilograms per ton. Stronghold estimates that Pennsylvania alone has over 220 million tons of harmful wastage.

Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies have caught the attention of regulators recently due to their reliance on energy-intensive processes in order to mine and provide validation for the network.

Earlier this month, a New York state proposal to suspend proof-of-work mining that uses fossil fuels was introduced, citing the negative environmental impact of the process, that proposal today was advanced by the New York State Assembly. If passed, it could see proof-of-work mining suspended for up to 3 years in New York.

Related: Bitcoin mining could be good for US energy independence: Research

Other schemes have seen ways to make Bitcoin mining environmentally friendly. Earlier this month, oil drilling company ConocoPhillips started a program in North Dakota where it would sell the natural gas byproduct from its operations to Bitcoin miners instead of burning it.

Last August, Argo Blockchain, a United Kingdom-based crypto mining company announced its operations had become “climate positive” on its greenhouse gas emissions. Its planned 200 MW mining facility in Texas is also set to run on renewable energy.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

Largest cryptocurrency exchange in Latin America to develop renewable energy tokens

Mercado Bitcoin and Comerc plan to launch two separate tokens incentivizing renewable energy use.

In an announcement to Reuters News on Thursday morning, Brazillian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin said it has signed an agreement with Comerc, one of the main retail energy providers in Brazil, to develop renewable energy tokens. Mercado Bitcoin and Comerc seek to implement two types of tokens.

The first, set to launch in 2022, will be tied to a cashback scheme for solar energy generation. Currently, Comerc customers receive up to 15% to 20% of their electricity bills' value in cashbacks should they choose to switch to solar energy. The second token will be linked to certificates that document energy consumption from renewable sources.

In a statement to Reuters, Matheus Nogueira, CEO of Nori, a company that distributes energy for Comerc, said the following:

The token can be treated like any other currency, but it has an additional benefit, it is a token that represents a renewable generation.

Meanwhile, an executive linked to the project at Comerc gave the following remark regarding the three "Ds" of the company's initiative regarding renewable energy:

First, decarbonization, encouraging clean energy; the second is decentralization, our plants are based on distributed generation…, and finally, digitalization.

Mercado Bitcoin claims to be the largest cryptocurrency in Latin America, with more than three million customers. According to CoinGecko, the exchange lists 11 coins and had a trading volume of $19.4 million in the past 24 hours. Earlier this year, Mercado Bitcoin attracted a $200 million investment from Japanese multinational conglomerate Softbank. The exchange has processed the USD equivalent of over $5 billion in crypto trades since January.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

To the roots of mining: Bitcoin going green faster than ever

Many crypto-mining firms are transitioning to renewable sources of energy to help facilitate their operations.

There’s no denying that over the past couple of years, the narrative that Bitcoin (BTC) consumes too much power has continued to garner an increasing amount of mainstream traction. However, what sometimes gets ignored is that in recent months, an increasing number of Bitcoin miners have moved toward the use of power sources driven primarily by renewable energy.

To expound further on the subject, it should be noted that a number of studies, including one that was released recently by Cambridge University, revealed that more than 75% of all miners operating today make use of renewable sources to power their day-to-day operations.

In this regard, MintGreen, a Canada-based cleantech cryptocurrency miner, recently announced that it had entered into an agreement with Lonsdale Energy Corporation to supply heat generated from BTC mining to the residents of North Vancouver in British Columbia by the start of 2022.

To elaborate on the deal, a spokesperson for MintGreen recently said that the company’s digital boilers are capable of recovering more than 96% of the electricity that it uses for Bitcoin mining purposes. As a result of such a setup, the firm will reportedly be able to prevent 20,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per megawatt from entering the atmosphere per annum.

Not only that, but MintGreen also claims that the harvested energy can and will be used to provide heat to a total of 100 residential and commercial buildings in a Canadian city, which per recent census data currently houses a population of around 155,000 individuals.

But could this be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the crypto industry can impact the environment in a positive way?

Renewables as a game-changer

Providing his thoughts on the matter, Colin Sullivan, CEO of MintGreen, said that his company’s partnership with Lonsdale seeks to help mitigate and tackle a number of issues related to climate change that people have tended to associate with various crypto mining activities.

Zach Bradford, CEO of CleanSpark — a sustainable Bitcoin mining and energy technology company — told Cointelegraph that the relationship between energy generation and Bitcoin mining will continue to deepen and expand over the coming decade, adding that there are a lot of stranded energy assets in North America that Bitcoin mining is particularly suited to make use of. He then went on to add:

“There are power plants that are currently too far from large metro areas to be efficient during regular demand. A Bitcoin miner can partner with the community to conserve that energy by using it to mine Bitcoin and send excess energy to other parts of the grid.”

When questioned about the long-term viability of a setup such as the one proposed by MintGreen, he opined that it depends entirely from company to company, stating that there are two scenarios that can be used to expand upon the subject: “In one scenario, Bitcoin miners set up shop where there is excess energy — i.e., where energy is already being lost. Mining takes those stranded electrons and converts them into something useful — ala Bitcoin.” In the second scenario for Bradford, “Bitcoin miners increase the total energy generation in a particular area,” he added.

And while the latter may result in a “loss” of energy for mining, according to Bradford, there is usually much more total energy available when such a setup is involved. Therefore, in case one’s local power infrastructure needs that extra energy — for heating or cooling homes during peak periods — it is possible for grids to harness this excess electricity in order to satisfy the demand of their users.

Bitcoin’s future is becoming increasingly green

In Bradford’s view, Bitcoin mining is the first meaningful investment in decades that is designed to help bolster North America’s existing energy infrastructure because he believes that Bitcoin not only increases energy consumption across areas where it is being mined but also improves upon that region’s energy generation capabilities, adding:

“This is a key aspect that is sometimes lost in the ideological struggle. North America’s energy consumption is going to grow a lot over the next decade as electric vehicles become more mainstream. In California, EVs are already straining the state’s power grid. California’s present is North America’s future.”

Related: Crypto remittances see adoption, but volatility may be a deal breaker

In this regard, one can see that Bitcoin mining incentivizes energy development and generation, with almost everyone involved — not just miners — standing to gain from this evolution. “We’re in for a wild ride as global climate goals, greater energy demand from electric vehicles and monetary policy all collide with Bitcoin at the center of it,” Bradford closed out by saying.

Similarly, providing his thoughts on the subject, Samir Tabar, chief strategy officer of Bit Digital — a Bitcoin miner listed on the Nasdaq — told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin miners are and were criticized over the environmental toll from mining. However, the reality today is that Bitcoin miners have become the vanguard in showing innovation and creativity in leveraging sustainable practices. “This experiment with North Vancouver is an illustrative example of that ingenuity,” he noted.

Crypto’s walk toward a more sustainable future

Per a report released in December 2020, it is estimated that real estate building operations and their associated construction-related activities currently account for a whopping 38% of all carbon dioxide emissions taking place in urban areas. Therefore, the narrative that crypto mining alone is quickly becoming one of the largest contributors to today’s global warming could be skewed.

To elaborate further, one study suggests that hydroelectric power is the most common source of energy for miners presently, with a staggering 62% of all mining farm operators reportedly making use of hydroelectricity to facilitate their day-to-day operations — with exhaustible sources such as coal and natural gas taking the second and third spots at 38% and 36%, respectively, followed by wind and solar energy.

Also, with companies like MintGreen now modernizing their mining rigs at an increasingly rapid pace, it stands to reason that more firms and people will look to turn toward various crypto mining operations to meet their power and heating needs in the near future. In fact, MintGreen has already teamed up with the Vancouver Island Sea Salt facility and the Canadian whiskey company Shelter Point Distillery to start selling its excess heat energy by 2022.

As the industry attempts to move closer to a greener future, it appears as though many standards surrounding carbon neutrality are becoming a norm for the crypto mining industry. To put things into perspective, data suggests that gold mining is more resource-exhaustive than BTC. Similarly, it is estimated that flare gas waste can power the entire BTC network 6.2 times over, which just goes to show that crypto miners could turn out to be part of a solution when it comes to wasted energy.

Lastly, as pointed out previously, a growing list of mining firms have adopted strategies that have enabled them to become “climate positive” for Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

New Brazilian Bitcoin ETF pledges carbon neutrality

Hashdex has promised to invest a portion of the assets managed by its new BITH11 ETF into carbon credits and green tech.

BITH11, a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) launched in Brazil by crypto-focused alternative investment firm Hashdex Asset Management, claims to be the country’s first “green” Bitcoin ETF.

The fund plans to neutralize its associated carbon emissions through purchasing carbon credits. To meet the ETF’s objectives, Hashdex has partnered with Germany’s Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI) — which will produce annual reports estimating the energy consumption and carbon emissions underpinning the creation of BTC acquired by the fund.

The ETF is currently aiming to invest 0.15% of its liquid assets into carbon credits and eco-friendly technologies every year. The fund was launched on the B3 Brazilian Stock Exchange late last week under the ticker BITH11.

According to a rough translation, Rogerio Santana, relationship director at the São Paulo-based B3 exchange, stated:

“The new ETF offers investors exposure to variations in the world's main digital asset, with all its growth potential and value reserve, in a regulated, secure manner and under sustainability goals,”

Hashdex is an issuer of regulated crypto investment funds, having launched its first crypto-focused ETF, HASH11, in April of this year. Over the past month, HASH11 has gained 33% according to Bloomberg.

In addition to HASH11 and BITH11, Hashdex also offers a weighted Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI) fund tracking BTC, and its Bitcoin Risk Parity Gold Fund.

Related: SkyBridge buys 38,500 tons of carbon offsets

Green crypto funds have grown in popularity this year as concerns over the fossil fuel-based energy consumption of crypto mining operations entered mainstream discourse.

In May, Canadian Bitcoin ETF issuer, Ninepoint, announced plans to offset the carbon footprint of its BTC fund, partnering with carbon offsetting service provider CarbonX.

The following month, crypto-focused hedge fund manager One River Digital reported a surge in demand for carbon-neutral Bitcoin investment products.

On August 3, Global investment firm SkyBridge Capital announced that it had partnered with carbon credit provider MOSS Earth to purchase tokens representing 38,436 tons of carbon offsets.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means

Bitcoin Mining Report Claims Miner Energy Consumption Mix 56% Sustainable in Q2

Bitcoin Mining Report Claims Miner Energy Consumption Mix 56% Sustainable in Q2During the last three months, there’s been a significant focus on the effects bitcoin mining has on the global environment. While many have claimed bitcoin mining is bad for the environment and many others have stressed that it affects the environment in a positive way, either way, most are relying on unreliable and old data […]

Chamath Palihapitiya Says US Economy ‘in the Toilet’ if Not for Government Distortions – Here’s What He Means