{"id":11867,"date":"2022-01-20T21:11:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T21:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci0297c89fd0002790"},"modified":"2022-01-20T21:11:16","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T21:11:16","slug":"bitcoin-mining-hearing-in-us-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/industry-events\/bitcoin-mining-hearing-in-us-house","title":{"rendered":"First U.S. House Hearing On Bitcoin Mining Shows Misunderstandings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The first Congressional hearing on bitcoin mining took place on Thursday after a U.S. House subcommittee scheduled it to get a better understanding of the environmental impacts of the industry.<\/p>\n

Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, said<\/a> in her opening statement that despite the promising applications of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, mining\u2019s energy usage and carbon emissions ought to be at the forefront of all discussions about cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot bring retired fossil fuel plants back online or delay the retirement of some of our oldest and least efficient plants in support of energy-intensive crypto mining,\u201d said Rep. Frank Pallone, the Democrat who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee, according to a Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> <\/em>report.<\/p>\n

The hearing featured five witnesses<\/a>, who testified on their knowledge of the power consumption of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as well as their legitimacy.<\/p>\n

However, only two witnesses portrayed a good understanding of Bitcoin\u2019s proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism, being able to explain to the subcommittee why PoW is needed and can\u2019t be substituted by proof of stake (PoS).<\/p>\n

John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna Computing, told Bitcoin Magazine <\/em>in an interview after the hearing that Bitcoin \u201ccan\u2019t take the risk to shift\u201d to PoS, a consensus mechanism that \u201cmay actually undermine what has given [Bitcoin] its strength and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belizaire added that consensus mechanisms other than PoW \u201creintroduce the centralized concept of trust,\u201d and that he sees Bitcoin and crypto as \u201ctwo separate things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand you say [bitcoin mining<\/a>] uses all of this energy, but it could be the catalyst for renewable energy,\u2026there are billions of dollars being stored in it every day, and\u2026it\u2019s launching all of this ecosystem and financial services,\u201d Belizaire told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>, referring to the level of misunderstanding the Representatives showed about bitcoin mining.<\/p>\n

Brian Brooks, CEO of bitcoin miner Bitfury and former acting comptroller of the currency, said that it isn\u2019t fitting for policymakers to decide whether Bitcoin represents a \u201cgood\u201d use of energy \u2014<\/em> a decision that should be left to the market to decide. Brooks also highlighted how bitcoin can actually help the energy economy of the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin\u2026is like an energy derivative, it provides real-time price signals to the market about the most valuable use of energy in a given place,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cThe vast majority of industrial-scale bitcoin miners are the price transmission belt for all of the energy globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks went on to explain that his company \u201cvirtually only\u201d deploys mining operations in joint ventures with utility or renewable providers, because \u201cthey can only make the economics work if there\u2019s a baseload consumer there, and that\u2019s almost always bitcoin mining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our projects are: some utility says, \u2018We can\u2019t build another plant unless you will come and be our interruptible source of baseload consumption,\u2019\u201d Brooks added. \u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of bitcoin mining.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lack of knowledge on proof of work prevailed by most Representatives as they questioned the energy use of bitcoin mining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2572,"featured_media":6844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2612,97,93,2611],"class_list":{"0":"post-11867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-industry-events","8":"tag-congressional-hearing","9":"tag-mining","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-us-house"},"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\/us-congress.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11867","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=11867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}