Pending halving in April, which will halve the reward for miners, the situation seems anything but worrying, also because this is a widely expected and certain event.
In recent days, some good news has been published regarding Bitcoin mining, particularly in the United States. For example, Wyoming Republican state senator Cynthia Lummis said her state would be happy to welcome more Bitcoin miners. More details below.
Statements by Senator Lummis on Bitcoin Mining
Lummis has been one of the leading American politicians supporting Bitcoin for many years, to the point that, together with her Democratic colleague Kirsten Gillibrand, she drafted a bill that could have regulated the crypto sector.
Unfortunately, due to the opposition of the Democrats, in fact supported by the Joe Biden government, this bill has not yet been approved, but in the event of a Republican victory in November it could be the basis on which to develop a new cryptocurrency regulation in the US.
Although this year the new crypto regulation called MiCA comes into force in the EU, the US, on the contrary, still does not even have a specific bill to regulate the sector, as the Lummis-Gillibrand bill has stalled in Congress due to the lack of a majority to support it.
Benefits of Bitcoin Mining
Lummis argues that Bitcoin mining could have positive impacts on the management of energy networks and for the development of new or abandoned energy resources.
This is, for example, the so-called flue gas, that is, the residual gas produced during oil extraction, which is used, for example in Texas, to produce electricity at very low cost to power mining operations.
However, it also refers to those renewable energies whose production cannot be regulated, such as photovoltaics or wind power.
In these cases, there is a risk of producing too much electricity when perhaps less is needed, and of not being able to produce it when more is needed. This reduces revenue but keeps production costs high, sometimes making it uneconomical to produce electricity in this way.
Bitcoin mining, on the other hand, would allow excess energy produced to be monetized, keeping income high.
Disagreement with the Department of Energy
In her tweet on Saturday, Cynthia Lummis highlights that the EIA (Energy Information Administration), the statistical and analytical agency of the Department of Energy of the US government (equivalent to the Ministry of Energy), had to temporarily suspend one of its “intrusive and reckless” surveys” regarding mining.
In fact, the previous day a major disagreement had emerged between Bitcoin miners and several US energy agencies, such as the EIA, but also DOW and OMB, regarding the collection of data on energy consumption due to crypto mining.
This disagreement led the Texas Blockchain Council to sue US energy agencies, effectively forcing the Department of Energy to temporarily suspend the survey.
The problem is that, according to the mining companies that were forced to respond to that survey, they were asked to reveal confidential and sensitive information that could cause harm to the companies themselves.
Instead, the EIA maintains that such information would be necessary to determine whether increased electricity use by miners could be detrimental to the reliability of the power grid.
Hashrate Record
Bitcoin mining hashrate reaches its all-time high again. In fact, today the highest hourly peak ever recorded was recorded, above 717 Eh/s. The previous record was recorded on February 12 with 710 Eh/s.
BTC mining still appears to be in good shape, despite the certainty that in April the Bitcoin protocol will automatically halve the reward for miners.
By Audy Castaneda
