In a letter addressed to Michael S. Regan, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, crypto firms and investment agencies focused on crypto said that there was no “ meaningful difference between a “digital asset mining facility” and data centers run by Google, Apple, Microsoft.”
Initially, Representative Huffman and 22 members of Congress sent a letter to the Administrator for consideration of many alleged flaws contributing to environmental concerns in the crypto sector. It made some absurd assumptions like, “A single Bitcoin transaction could power the average U.S. household for a month.” The letter by these firms is in response to the same.
The letter said that proof-of-work mining was necessary since Bitcoin was specifically founded to enable transfers without any intermediaries. It also said that proof-of-stake mining undermines the objective of Bitcoin and that transitioning BTC to proof-of-stake mining would be “impracticable.”
The letter is an 11-page address to the Administrator, addressing several arguments related to crypto in a detailed manner. The letter said that the estimates of Bitcoin mining energy consumption (30,700 tons of electronic waste every year, as per the letter by congress members) are completely misleading and false.
“All data centers utilize electricity generated externally. Emissions are created at the power generation source upstream from the data centers. Digital asset miners simply purchase electricity from the grid, the same as Microsoft and other datacenter operators.”
The letter demanded that regulatory and law enforcement agencies like the EPA require a data center and a power generation facility to comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Then it asks the EPA not to confuse a data center and a power generation facility.
The letter concluded that education concerning crypto mining is necessary for all public officials before making any assumptions. The firms said that it was important that U.S. officials understood the importance of Bitcoin and the innovation of Proof of Work spread across fields like finance, economics, and accounting.
