![]() ![]() The most popular other countries are, in rough order, China (yes, despite the ban, there’s about 17% of hashrate in China), Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Paraguay, Norway and Venezuela. composes roughly 30-40% of global Bitcoin mining (the best data we have comes from Cambridge University, but it’s somewhat dated and imprecise). In fact, many miners who were using abundant hydro power in the Yunnan or Sichuan provinces moved to Kazakhstan, which has a highly fossil-fueled power grid. It cannot persuade the miners to trash their ASICs. Hashrate dipped temporarily after the ban, then came roaring back to a level double the pre-ban amount. China’s Bitcoin mining ban in 2021 did not result in any less Bitcoin mining – the miners simply left China (for the most part) and set up shop elsewhere (including the U.S). Bitcoin mining is a highly competitive industry, and miners are incentivized to bring capacity online as long as the economics are favorable. does not mean less Bitcoin mining overall. It would eliminate the ability of Bitcoin miners to help monetize the renewable buildout in the U.S., and rule them out from assisting with grid stabilization programs that they actively participate in.įirstly, and most important, taxing mining in the U.S.It would directly empower America’s adversaries, like Russia, China, Venezuela, and Iran – by making (state-sanctioned) mining operations more profitable there.would be uneconomical, and miners would simply choose to leave It wouldn’t raise money, as mining in the U.S.It would directly increase the emissions associated with Bitcoin mining, by pushing miners out of the (relatively low-carbon intensity) U.S., into dirtier jurisdictions.It would get miners to “pay their fair share” of costs imposed on local communities and the environmentīut the tax would actually do the following:.It would in theory raise $3.5b in revenue over 10 years.The objectives of the tax are as follows: In fact, it directly achieves the opposite of what its architects envision. Regarding the tax itself, it doesn’t even achieve its stated objectives. And in a future, possible Trump Administration, who’s to say he wouldn’t use a similar approach to cut off the electricity supply of abortion clinics, leftist universities, Disney World, the NY Times, or any other industries or corporations he dislikes? In this country, resources like electricity should be available to all, not used as a political cudgel to attack specific industries. I could easily imagine the next DAME tax targeting data-centers running AI models that aren’t sufficiently woke, or data centers running servers for uncensored social media. If this precedent is set, any politically disfavored energy consumer will potentially be in the crosshairs. Other industries don’t get held responsible for grid emissions this way, just politically disfavored ones like Bitcoin miners. Aaron Daniel has argued convincingly that Bitcoin mining is protected speech under the First Amendment, and that a mining ban singles miners out unfairly, as New York State has done already. Additionally, the proposed tax may not even be legal. If the Biden admin can’t get the grid to be sufficiently green, it should focus on that rather than punishing an industry that buys less than a single percentage point of the electricity produced in the U.S. It’s not bitcoin miners’ responsibility to decarbonize the electricity they purchase – that falls to the architects of the grid. The tax sets an extremely dangerous precedent, as it singles out an industry that lawfully purchases electricity, holding the electricity buyers responsible for the carbon emissions of the underlying generation. ![]()
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