Crypto miners succumb to pressure to cut energy use
Bitcoin miners in North America have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency and accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.
This move was spearheaded by Elon Musk, and hosted by Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor.
Musk tweeted, “Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.”
Saylor tweeted, “Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between Elon Musk and the leading bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.”
According to Saylor, the meeting included executives from Argo Blockchain, Blockcap, Core Scientific, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon, and Riot Blockchain.
In a related development, ethereum is closing in on a long-sought fix to cut energy us by over 99 per cent Bloomberg reports. The second most valuable cryptocurrency is making strides in reducing its carbon footprint.
ETH and Bitcoin utilise a proof-of-work system that requires a global network of computers that never stop working. Software developers at ETH have been working for years to transition the blockchain to what is known as a proof-of-stake system Bloomberg said.
This system uses an entire new approach to secure the network and also eliminates carbon emission problems. Inventor of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin said, “Switching to proof of stake has become more urgent for us because of how crypto and Ethereum have grown over the last year.
“I’m definitely very happy that one of the biggest problems of blockchain will go away when proof of stake is complete.”
The inventor is hoping for the changes by 2021’s year. The change could boost the price of ETH to compete with Bitcoin, as the digital currency becomes more environmentally friendly.
As cryptocurrencies provide an alternative to traditional finances, central banks around the world (save Africa) have begun to set plans for their digital currencies in place.
On Tuesday, Bitcoin was $38,003.52. It had a 24-hour trading volume of $59,636,032,409. Bitcoin was up 0.26 per cent. It had a live market cap of $711,362,889,403, a circulating supply of 18,718,343 BTC coins, and a maximum supply of 21,000,000 BTC coins.
Ethereum was $2,573.94. It had a 24-hour trading volume of $49,903,953,499. Ethereum was up 0.68per cent. It had a live market cap of $298,632,338,612, a circulating supply of 116,021,587 ETH coins, and its maximum supply was not available.
Dogecoin was $0.341085. It had a 24-hour trading volume of $6,904,862,648. Dogecoin was up 2.02per cent. It had a live market cap of $44,255,394,118, a circulating supply of 129,748,929,479 DOGE coins, and its maximum supply was not available.
