The hearing will get conducted by the Trade and Energy Oversight Subcommittee. Although there are not enough details, they will mainly address the mining of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The Subcommittee on Supervision of Commerce and Energy is a group attached to the US House of Representatives and scheduled a new hearing for next January 20 to discuss energy consumption and the environmental footprint related to the operation of Blockchain networks.
The hearing will get called “Cleaning up cryptocurrency: The energy impact of Blockchains.” With this hearing, they will address the aspects associated with the functioning of Blockchain networks on which cryptocurrencies work, presumably those that operate under the Proof protocol. -of-Work (PoW) and have a mining ecosystem like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Although there are no details about this hearing or a list of the people who will participate, this hearing will handle a hybrid modality since some participants will be in person while others will attend digitally. It is also clear that the meeting will take place in the morning hours in the offices of the Rayburn House building.
This issue got addressed by the Subcommittee on Oversight, and it seems that the problem has not progressed adequately in the other Houses of Congress. This situation may be the beginning of the path to thinking about adequate legislation on the subject; since the entity aims at addressing any activity that gets considered problematic, leaving the mining of the most reputable cryptocurrencies in the spotlight.
Electricity Consumption and Environmental Footprint: The Problems of Cryptocurrencies
As Bitcoin and the most popular cryptocurrencies have been gaining popularity, the problems associated with electricity consumption and the environmental footprint resulting from carbon emissions have been an issue on the table throughout the year 2021.
Perhaps one of the most notable points of this situation took place in May 2021, when Elon Musk indicated that Tesla would withdraw support for payments via Bitcoin due to the environmental implications associated with the use of cryptocurrency.
This announcement generated a lot of uncertainty in the market; the impact on the price was such that its price fell sharply the day the decision of the electric car manufacturer was made public.
Given the visibility of the problem, Musk, together with Michael Saylor, founded an organization that would encourage renewable as the first energy provider in Bitcoin mining.
This activity could mitigate the impact generated by the sector and seek greater adoption of the digital currency between businesses and entities.
The second digital currency with the largest market capitalization, Ethereum, currently works on a transition of its mining system to implement Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
Proof of Stake is a modality that reduces the electricity consumption associated with mining by 99% operations of the network, bringing more improvements in scalability and low costs for most of its operations.
By Jenson Rivas
