U.S Lawmakers Requested Crypto Miners To Provide Info About Environmental Impact
U.S Lawmakers requested crypto miners for information on environmental impact. U.S lawmakers have expressed their concern that crypto miners are causing a lot of environmental damage due to their fossil fuel use.
Letters To Crypto Miners
Recently, four members of the U.S House Committee have senta letter asking four of the largest crypto mining companies to share their data on the environmental impact of crypto mining.
The crypto mining companies that were seeked out by the lawmakers were Core Scientific (CORZ), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Marathon Digital (MARA), and Stronghold Digital (SDIG).
The lawmakers reportedly asked for all of this data out of concern that crypto’s proof-of-work consensus mining required so much energy that it would increase the demand and use of fossil fuels.
NEW: E&C leaders sent a series of letters to cryptomining companies today demanding answers on what they’re doing to mitigate their energy use and offset their climate impacts. Read more here 👇 https://t.co/YDemVtZkVE
— Energy and Commerce Committee (@EnergyCommerce) August 17, 2022
“Some of the largest crypto mining companies in the country continue to rely primarily on the electrical grid for their power source. This can drive up peak demand and may even breathe new life into fossil fuel generators.” The US House Energy and Commerce Committee letter read.
“Given the existential threat posed by the climate crisis, we are deeply concerned about efforts like [proof-of-work mining] that increase demand for fossil fuels, with the potential to put new strain on our energy grid.”
Within the letter, the lawmakers acknowledge that they are aware that some crypto miners have taken it into their own hands to reduce the amount of energy consumption through investing in renewable sources of power, however, they argued that it’s still evident that a majority of miners are still relying on fossil fuel generators for their electric power.
Rising Popularity Of Proof-of-Stake
Issues like this are one of the reasons why the proof-of-stake consensus is becoming more and more popular for blockchains to use. Due to the proof-of-stake not relying on crypto miners, blockchains that run on PoS dramatically reduce the amount of energy consumption they take up.
Ethereum specifically, the second biggest cryptocurrency and blockchain in the space is merging to a proof-of-stake consensus on September, reducing their energy consumption by as much as 99%.
Because of this, many in the community have agreed that PoS is not only a more ‘efficient’ consensus, but also far more environmentally friendly than Proof-Of-Work which requires the work of crypto miners.
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