{"id":10369,"date":"2022-03-29T15:54:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T15:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci029d5e4b10002613"},"modified":"2022-03-29T15:54:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T15:54:56","slug":"greenpeace-seeks-to-change-bitcoin-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/markets\/greenpeace-seeks-to-change-bitcoin-code","title":{"rendered":"Greenpeace, Ripple Lobby to Move Bitcoin Away From Proof-of-Work"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Several climate activist groups including Greenpeace and billionaire Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen are launching a campaign to advocate for Bitcoin moving away from Proof-of-Work<\/a>, a consensus mechanism they argue consumes an unsustainable amount of energy, Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The \u201cChange the Code, Not the Climate\u201d campaign will attempt to lobby institutions in the Bitcoin industry that pledge an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda, buy ads in leading publications and appeal to communities allegedly suffering from bitcoin miners\u2019 noisy activities to try and convince investors that Bitcoin could use a different consensus protocol that is supposedly both better for the environment and enables a similar degree of security.<\/p>\n

The argument, albeit flawed, is not new.<\/p>\n

In January, a cohort of U.S. Representatives put the same suggestion forward in a Congressional hearing on bitcoin mining<\/a> whereby they received two different but complementary responses as to why such a move away from PoW would defeat Bitcoin\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n

John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna Computing and a witness at the January hearing, told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em> at the time that Bitcoin \u201ccan\u2019t take the risk to shift\u201d to Proof-of-Stake (PoS)<\/a>, a consensus mechanism that \u201cmay actually undermine what has given [Bitcoin] its strength and growth.\u201d Belizaire added that consensus mechanisms other than PoW \u201creintroduce the centralized concept of trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitcoin miner Bitfury CEO, the former acting comptroller of the currency and a witness at that hearing, Brian Brooks, explained in his statements then that not only it isn\u2019t fitting for policymakers to decide whether Bitcoin represents a \u201cgood\u201d use of energy but also that the peer-to-peer monetary system can help the development of the renewable energy economy of the United States.<\/p>\n

U.S. Representatives and climate activists still display plenty of misconceptions about Bitcoin and its energy use in their arguments. The House had scheduled the hearing after a cohort of national and international climate-related organizations sent Representatives a letter claiming proof of work (PoW) mining could be hazardous to the world\u2019s climate in the long run.<\/p>\n

However, the letter based its arguments on controversial and faulty research, as highlighted by the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) in a fact-checking note<\/a> it published on January 13. BPI later published another fact sheet<\/a> to curb possible misinformation being leveraged by the committee in its assessment of Bitcoin\u2019s power usage.<\/p>\n

If the \u201cChange the Code, Not the Climate\u201d campaign bases itself on truthful research and factual arguments, it is unlikely to succeed. Castle Island Ventures Partner Nic Carter wrote last year that the opinions of those who don\u2019t understand Bitcoin should not be taken into consideration<\/a> in the currency\u2019s energy consumption discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chris Bendiksen, a Bitcoin researcher at CoinShares and according to the Bloomberg<\/em> report one of the world\u2019s leading experts on bitcoin mining, echoed Belizaire\u2019s comments and said that moving away from PoW would \u201cdestroy the security of the protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, Greenpeace\u2019s move might stand in stark contrast to the group\u2019s own interests. Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, tweeted Tuesday about the irony of the climate activist\u2019s move.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnvironmental activists face a high threat of frozen bank accounts and deplatforming,\u201d the tweet reads<\/a>. \u201cGreenpeace has literally been targeted this way before and will need censorship-resistant fundraising tech again.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a different note, to \u201cChange the Code, Not the Climate\u201d requires making a formal code proposal to Bitcoin, not advocating with publication ads, noted the CTO and co-founder of Bitcoin security company Casa, Jameson Lopp, on Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear @bruneski @chrislarsensf @Greenpeace, I am unable to find your Bitcoin Improvement Proposal submission, nor can I find any discussions initiated by you on the development mailing list,\u201d the tweet says<\/a>. \u201cPlease follow the process if you wish to be taken seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Congressman Warren Davidson equaled<\/a> the campaign to an attempt to ban Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t see an attack on Proof-of-Work as an attack on #BTC, you understand neither,\u201d he tweeted<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s an attack on the fundamental architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro-Bitcoin U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis also shared her thoughts on the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a disingenuous play for federal regulatory capture,\u201d she tweeted<\/a>. \u201cDon\u2019t fall for it. Let \u2018em compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Union has recently flirted with similar measures at the government level. The region\u2019s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) touted banning PoW cryptocurrencies altogether<\/a> earlier this month over claims that the technology could allegedly hurt EU efforts to promote sustainable innovation. The provision, which was part of the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation<\/a> and sought to force changes on PoW cryptocurrency\u2019s mining mechanisms, was dropped and substituted by another section that added bitcoin mining to the EU sustainable finance taxonomy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., New York Assembly\u2019s Environmental Conservation Committee voted last week to advance legislation that would impose a ban on bitcoin mining, Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> reported. However, it would still need to pass by the entire Assembly and State Senate and be signed by the Governor to become law, per the report.<\/p>\n

According to the Bloomberg<\/em> report, the campaign believes that about 50 key miners, bitcoin exchanges and core developers have the power to change Bitcoin\u2019s code. Similar coordination among key industry players \u2013 including miners \u2013 happened in 2017 to increase Bitcoin\u2019s block size<\/a>, another foundational characteristic of Bitcoin, as transaction fees turned expensive as mainstream interest in Bitcoin skyrocketed. The failed attempt that took place nearly five years ago proved that miners and corporations albeit how powerful cannot force changes on the Bitcoin protocol without the support of nodes and end-users.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d put the chance of Bitcoin ever moving to PoS at exactly 0%,\u201d Bendiksen said, per the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate activists and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen want to convince Bitcoin companies, miners and developers into changing Bitcoin\u2019s consensus mechanism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2572,"featured_media":10370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1879,93,2461],"class_list":["post-10369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-greenpeace","tag-news","tag-ripple"],"author_data":{"id":2572,"name":"Namcios","nicename":"namcios","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/pfp-96x96.png"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/screen-shot-2021-06-23-at-101445-am.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}