Home Technology Elon Musk and Bitcoin investors are looking at ways to stop crypto-mining from burning the planet down

Elon Musk and Bitcoin investors are looking at ways to stop crypto-mining from burning the planet down

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While cryptocurrencies may be incredibly volatile on the market and the rise of NFTs are pretty much an embarrassment to common sense, I believe that there is a lot of value to be found in blockchain technology. The idea of a distributed ledger system that keeps track of critical data, is certainly a more secure platform in which to trade and store certain types of information, and can offer a lot of innovative solutions beyond just cryptocurrencies in the technology world.

Despite dealing with the risky nature of crypto-currencies and their bad reputation, the other big issue affecting the technology–and Bitcoin specifically–is the high processing costs of all the bitcoin operations out there, which is creating a big energy drain on the world and becoming a big sustainability problem for greenhouses gases, especially with global warming already a massive challenge everyone is trying to fight.

This concern is largely what has led Tesla’s Elon Musk to no longer support Bitcoin as a payment platform – despite having a massive fortune invested in it. Rather than simply pointing out the problem, Musk wants to be part of the solution and he has met up with the USA’s largest Bitcoin miners to work together to solve this dilemma and promote more sustainable solutions to Bitcoin mining:

This newly formed Bitcoin Mining Council will include representatives from companies like Argo Blockchain, Blockcap, Core Scientific, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain Technologies, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon Digital Holdings, and Riot Blockchain, along with Musk himself. Its main focus to reduce the greenhouse gas problem that the industry faces.

Unfortunately, with Bitcoin built off of inefficient but very secure algorithms, it’s not just as easy as changing the mining maths, as that is built into the way the tokens operate. It will mean that these mining companies need to look into renewable forms of energy to help reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It will be interesting to see how they challenge these problems and if they can make a significant difference to start improving the poor reputation Bitcoin has in this regard.

Last Updated: May 26, 2021

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