New York State Senate passes bill to suspend Bitcoin mining

Overnight, Bitcoin (BTC) is still trading sideways in the 29-30k range. The market is stagnant.

On the 3rd, the New York State Senate passed a two-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mining, freezing current carbon emissions levels from cryptocurrency mining and giving the government time to conduct investigations and research before taking further action.

The bill proposes to freeze the issuance of new licenses for proof-of-work (PoW) mining that uses carbon-based fuels as energy during the suspension period. In addition, established mining farms will continue to be allowed to operate.

According to Sen. Kevin Parker, D-Brooklyn, there is only one power plant in the entire state of New York that meets the bill's requirements.

The bill requires the environmental department to conduct a study on the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining operations and to take action on the findings before the moratorium expires.

New York State's environmental goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 85% by 2050.

In the last cycle, the challenge facing Bitcoin was hard forks. In this cycle, the challenge facing Bitcoin is carbon emissions.

On June 3 last year, Liu Jiaolian’s WeChat official account introduced a study on “Three Regulatory Policies for Bitcoin Mining”. The article introduced a research paper published in Nature Communications (2019 Impact Factor = 12.121) on April 6 , 2021. The title of the paper is Policy assessments for the carbon emission flows and sustainability of Bitcoin blockchain operation in China.

The paper analyzes three possible regulatory policies, namely MA (Market Access), SR (Site Regulation) and CT (Carbon Tax). The conclusion is that SR, which encourages mining to move to greener hydropower areas, will be a more effective policy.

On June 27 last year, the article "The Killer of Your Horse is a Boy on the Road" introduced: In May 2017, the UK Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) published a paper titled "The climate impact of quantitative easing". The paper pointed out that according to statistics from the European Central Bank (ECB), 62.1% of the production departments related to the over-issuance of currency are responsible for 58.5% of carbon emissions, but only contribute 18% of economic growth; for the Bank of England, the relevant production departments are responsible for 52% of carbon emissions, but only contribute 11.8% of economic growth.

Compared with Bitcoin mining, the negative impact on the environment and economy caused by the excessive issuance of fiat currency is a more serious problem.

Bitcoin is not a disease. Bitcoin is a medicine.

Like most governments, the New York State government is short-sighted and clumsy, and the first solution it thought of was to stop market access (MA), which is the simplest and crudest way to use power.

The bill now goes to the desk of Democratic Chairwoman Kathy Hochul, who will sign it into law.

Bitcoin miners in New York State have reportedly begun relocating their computing power to states with friendlier policies.