A number of North American cryptocurrency organisations, bodies, investors and enthusiasts have come together to form the Bitcoin Mining Council. The initiative was premiered after a discussion among the aforementioned parties, which also included Tesla/SpaceX chief and part-time crypto hustler Elon Musk, who joined the meeting that was hosted by American entrepreneur and co-founder of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor. The key postulates from the meeting included a decision to standardise reporting and transparency of energy consumption, strategise towards shifting to renewable energy sources, and moving towards industry-standard environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.
The Bitcoin Mining Council will be formed as a consortium of major investors in Bitcoin, along with other cryptocurrency companies and startups around the world. Companies that were revealed to be a part of the call hosted and attended by Saylor and Musk respectively included Argo Blockchain, Blockcap, Core Scientific, Galaxy Digital, Hive, Hut 8, Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Blockchain. The organisation will also seek to “educate and grow the marketplace,” Saylor said in a tweet.
The move comes as cryptocurrency mining has come under large-scale fire from multiple industries, in light of concerns around high energy consumption across the sector. The more conventional cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which soared in value after attracting attention from major investors across institutions, retail holdings and more, all typically operate in a proof of work concept, which notoriously leads to massive energy consumption through high performance GPUs and CPUs. Alongside being a major causal factor behind the global chipset supply shortage, mining of cryptocurrencies have seen consistently increasing consumption of conventional energy sources, which largely power electricity grids across the world.
The move to establish the Bitcoin Mining Council is an interesting one, as calls for extensively regulatory bodies around the world are on the rise. The need for self regulatory actions from proponents of the cryptocurrency industry are therefore going to hold massive importance in establishing ground rules and framework, on which crypto assets may grow in future. Cryptocurrencies such as Chia have entered the space with alternate concepts such as proof of space, which are already being supported by the likes of Amazon Web Services in terms of utilising available cloud data storage – a major move towards sustainability. With due time, it will be interesting to see how the Bitcoin Mining Council grows its postulates, and how the technology evolves.
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