MicroStrategy CEO: Bitcoin mining committee needs to combat ‘hostile’ narrative

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor explained the details and ideas behind forming a Bitcoin mining committee.

MicroStrategy CEO: Bitcoin mining committee needs to fight 'hostile' claims

On May 25, Elon Musk successfully met with several top North American bitcoin mining companies under Saylor's mediation, and the Bitcoin Mining Committee was officially established. The participating mining companies will provide transparency on current and planned use of renewable resources and will lobby other miners around the world to do the same.

Michael Saylor describes the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Committee and Elon Musk's shared interest in seeing Bitcoin succeed. — Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) May 25, 2021

At Consensus 2021, Saylor emphasized that the formation of the committee was motivated by the need to provide greater transparency into the Bitcoin mining industry and drive sustainable development initiatives forward.

“The only reason we had this meeting was because we wanted to make sure a decentralized cryptocurrency was successful, and decentralization is all about energy use,” Saylor said.

It turns out that Bitcoin miners don’t actually have a good forum to communicate about how they generate energy. We don’t have a standard model for Bitcoin’s energy use right now, and we don’t have a commonly used model for future predictions.

However, the Bitcoin Mining Committee has proven to be more controversial in some ways than OPEC. Broadcaster Marty Bent, co-founder of Great American Mining, which uses exhaust from energy plants to power its Bitcoin mining operations, compared it to the controversial Bitcoin expansion plan that emerged from the 2017 New York Agreement in a May 24 newsletter.

Don’t they remember the last time there was a closed-door meeting with stakeholders trying to speak for the industry as a whole?

But Saylor was quick to refute the idea that there was anything secretive or opaque about the meeting. "If it was a secret meeting, I wouldn't be telling millions of people the next day that it was a secret meeting," he said. "Believe me, you know, we told everybody in the world that we had a meeting."

He stressed the need to push back against the hostile anti-cryptocurrency narrative portrayed by some institutions and media outlets.

We need to make sure that those who are hostile to Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry don't define these narratives, don't define these models and metrics. They will define these models without any good information or any response from us.

The committee is made up of North American miners including Argos Blockchain, Blockcap, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain.

Elon Musk's involvement

Saylor revealed that after a “very long conversation” with Elon Musk, the MicroStrategy CEO contacted the Bitcoin mining company and asked if they would like to meet with the entrepreneur. During the “constructive” meeting, other attendees reportedly asked Musk for advice on how to address the growing carbon anxiety surrounding Bitcoin.

We asked Elon for advice on how we could actually address mainstream concerns. We had a detailed conversation about that. We talked about how we could get better data.

Musk’s “number one question” was reportedly “Can we figure out a way to publish or create transparency around Bitcoin mining energy usage?” Saylor echoed this sentiment, saying:

I think the first step is, let's develop a protocol that allows us to publish energy information in a way that can be shared with the world, and then work together to make sure we pursue sustainable energy goals. (Cointelegraph)