Saylor, Dorsey, Different Bitcoin Advocates Ship Letter to EPA Rebutting Home Democrats’ ‘Misperceptions’

Members of the Bitcoin group have co-authored a response to a current name from Home Democrats looking for further environmental scrutiny for crypto mining.

Just like the representatives’ letter, the letter from the crypto group is addressed to Michael S. Regan, administrator of the Environmental Safety Company.

“Sure members of Congress despatched a letter to the EPA premised on a number of misperceptions about Bitcoin mining,” tweeted Bitcoin bull and Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor. “We’ve authored a response to clear up the confusion, right inaccuracies, and educate the general public.” 

Block (previously Sq.) CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz, Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein, and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci have been among the many co-signers on Saylor’s letter.

The doc outlines eight particular “misperceptions” initially highlighted within the April 20 letter from Home Democrats. 

The group’s first level signifies that “there’s a distinction between a knowledge heart and an influence era facility,” and that this distinction was not made clear within the preliminary letter to the EPA.

The second level the group highlights is that “Bitcoin miners don’t have any emissions in any respect,” stating that any “related emissions are a operate of electrical energy era, which is a consequence of coverage selections and financial realities shaping the character of {the electrical} grid.”

The third level touches on the current determination to disclaim crypto miners Greenidge and Ameren an extension to their working permits. The letter explains that the explanation for this denial “offers with the power era facility NOT the info heart, containing the digital asset miners.”

The coalition’s fourth rivalry refers to Home Democrats’ declare that fossil fuel-based amenities are being reopened to assist crypto mining. The group stated fairly the other is happening, including that “the pattern is in direction of renewable [energy] era.”

The fifth level has been a well-liked matter amongst legislators, critics, and crypto fanatics alike, given how usually it makes headlines. 

The letter to the EPA equated a single Bitcoin transaction to utilizing the identical quantity of power as a mean American family for a month. Although this equal is technically true, utilizing this flip of phrase infers that Bitcoin might be “redeemed” for power (i.e., one Bitcoin transaction might fairly actually energy a home for a month).

As a substitute, notes Saylor’s letter, “It’s the excessive worth of Bitcoin mixed with its yearly new issuance (328k BTC this 12 months) which induces miners to devour power.”

The representatives’ letter to the EPA additionally famous that different mining mechanisms like Proof of Stake (PoS) have “99.99 % decrease power calls for” than proof-of-work (PoW) networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The coalition responded by saying that evaluating these two mechanisms is “qualitatively totally different” as a result of they do “not obtain the identical factor.” 

“A bicycle makes use of much less power than a aircraft, but it surely achieves one thing totally different, and so can’t be thought-about extra environment friendly,” the letter reads.

The seventh level within the crypto group’s response highlights digital waste and the way a lot mining creates. Digital waste refers to bodily parts of the computing trade, be it arduous drives, iPhones, or crypto miners that finally put on out.

The lawmakers’ letter to the EPA claims that “Bitcoin mining alone produces nearly 30,700 tons of digital waste yearly.”

This determine, the crypto proponents argued, comes from an outdated analysis paper and “the declare that Bitcoin miners produce huge portions of e-waste is a purely educational fantasy.”

Lastly, the crypto response to the unique letter once more explains a transparent distinction between a power-generating facility and a knowledge mining heart. “Energy era can be utilized to energy any trade,” the letter reads, and “the content material or sort of computational workloads ought to be irrelevant,” assuming {that a} knowledge heart abides by all legal guidelines and rules.

For some, many of those factors come as no shock. Cryptocurrencies, particularly these counting on PoW-based mining, have lengthy confronted stiff pushback from environmentalists.

The important thing distinction now, although, is that this dialog is now not occurring solely on-line.