Small-scale hydroelectric plants in China are reportedly looking for new customers as crypto miners go abroad amid a nationwide crackdown on mining activity. According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), advertisements for small-scale hydro plants with 50-megawatt capacity have surged on Chinese secondhand e-commerce platforms such as Xianyu. According to the SCMP, some sellers claimed that their listings were unrelated to the cryptocurrency mining industry, while others said that their bids came as a result of the recent crackdown on crypto mining. One seller reportedly said that small dams rely on crypto miners for a customer base because they …

Gemini, a major cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, is responding to Bitcoin’s (BTC) environmental issue by purchasing carbon credits. On Thursday, the company announced its long-term initiative to incorporate climate-conscious measures into its business, launching a collaboration with Climate Vault, a nonprofit founded at the University of Chicago. Through the initiative, Gemini plans to purchase carbon credits for nearly 350,000 metric tons of carbon to offset non-renewable energy consumed by Bitcoin miners and help decarbonize Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network. According to the announcement, the partnership will have Gemini purchase carbon permits directly from government-related cap-and-trade markets …

Amid ongoing concerns over Bitcoin’s carbon footprint, the United Nations has said that cryptocurrency’s underlying technology has massive potential for fixing global issues such as climate change. The U.N. will keep exploring the uses of blockchain technology as a way to fight the climate crisis and help reach a more sustainable global economy, according to an article published on the official U.N. website on Sunday. U.N. experts are confident that “cryptocurrencies and the technology that powers them can play an important role in sustainable development, and actually improving our stewardship of the environment.” Specifically, the article points out a number …

BTC.com — a major crypto mining pool that is operated by BIT Mining and owned by the NYSE-listed Chinese lottery service provider 500.com — has announced the successful relocation of its first batch of mining machines to Kazakhstan. BTC.com was founded by Jihan Wu and was operated by Bitmain and Bitdeer until its acquisition by 500.com this February. As of the time of writing, the pool is the world’s fifth-largest, validating 10.4% of blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain. The relocation comes after the company was notified by the state grid in western Sichuan province that the power supply serving one …

Chinese authorities continue to crack down on cryptocurrency mining as a city in Sichuan province has reportedly halted local Bitcoin (BTC) mining farms. Authorities in Ya’an City, a prefecture-level city in the western part of Sichuan province, have ordered local Bitcoin mining operations to shut down for examination, Chinese financial publication Sina Finance reported Friday. Citing an anonymous source from Chinese news agency PA News, the report said that it is unclear when or whether miners will restart mining operations. According to Chinese crypto blogger Colin Wu, the latest decision will impact major Bitcoin mining farms in Sichuan, which is …

Institutional investors have been showing a stronger appetite for a carbon-neutral Bitcoin (BTC) investment solution by One River Digital Asset Management. One River Digital, a crypto-focused hedge fund offering exposure to Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), announced Wednesday that an overwhelming majority of assets in its institutional Bitcoin fund have chosen to switch to One River’s new carbon-neutrality share class. In April, the company introduced a new system that calculates the carbon cost of Bitcoin mining and buys tokenized carbon credits in order to offset the environmental impact. Based on the estimated carbon emitted per one BTC and the market price …

Nayib Bukele’s plans for crypto in El Salvador are still in motion, with the president now calling for a geothermal power company to make certain facilities available to Bitcoin miners. In a Wednesday tweet from Bukele, the president said he would be instructing Mynor Gil, the president of the state-owned electrical company LaGeo, to facilitate Bitcoin (BTC) mining “with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy” from the country’s volcanoes. The firm operates the only two geothermal power plants in El Salvador based in the regions of Ahuachapán and Berlín, with announced plans to construct new facilities in …

While writing the world's most famous white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto defined the Bitcoin (BTC) mining process. It was established that the minting of new coins would take place through proof-of-work. To carry out this verification and to be able to mine the cryptocurrency, computers would need to solve complex mathematical calculations. In the beginning, there were not many miners. However, that changed before the first Bitcoin bull run. Mining competition skyrocketed, causing a sharp increase in the cost of machines capable of competing. Even more importantly, energy demand exploded with the new machines — which needed energy mainly for processing …

Elon Musk is definitely interested in digital currency, but it seems that he doesn’t want to understand it. At least, I worry that he doesn't have a deep enough understanding of Bitcoin (BTC) and decentralized systems in general. A decentralized system has to be secure, and proof-of-work (PoW) is the solution for Bitcoin to secure its digital asset. The more successful Bitcoin is, the more energy is required for PoW to secure the network. In other words, the reason that Bitcoin uses up so much more electricity than Dogecoin (DOGE), for example, is because BTC is much more secure than …

Is it possible to mine Bitcoin (BTC) using only 100% renewable energy sources and deliver the same economic returns as those using carbon-based sources? The answer is yes, according to Square’s recent analysis on the cost of renewables and their impact on Bitcoin mining. Unfortunately for our industry, the number of headlines and headline-making tweets about Bitcoin’s energy use and potential environmental impact has followed its rise in value in recent months. The increased media scrutiny has led to increased calls for regulatory action and even a proposed bill in the New York State Senate that would place a three-year …

With the hindsight of today's perspective on Bitcoin's (BTC) exorbitant energy consumption, it might come as something of a surprise to learn that the international non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace was one of its earlier adopters. Back in 2014, the organization set up a facility for accepting Bitcoin donations, yet this enthusiasm has now cooled, as widespread attention has homed in on the climate risks posed by energy-guzzling Proof-of-Work coins like Bitcoin. Last week, news broke that Greenpeace had decided to scrap the facility, holding it to "no longer be tenable" in an era of rapid global warming. Much of this …

North America’s Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry appears to be moving towards greater environmental sustainability after MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor brokered a successful meeting between Elon Musk and several prominent business leaders. Saylor and Musk both revealed Monday that the Bitcoin Mining Council has been established following the high-level talks. The council is made up of several industry leaders, including Argos Blockchain, Blockcap, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain. They’ve all agreed to “promote energy usage transparency [and] accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide,” Saylor tweeted Monday. Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between @elonmusk …