25+ Bitcoin Mining Companies Join Forces To Make Bitcoin Greener

More than 25 Bitcoin mining companies have joined forces to make Bitcoin greener thanks to the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC), founded by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor and backed by high-profile members including Galaxy Digital and Hive Blockchain.

In its first voluntary survey, the BMC has revealed information about Bitcoin’s sustainable energy use from over 32 percent of the current global Bitcoin network. The results show that the global mining sector uses electricity with a 67 percent sustainable power mix, representing a 56 percent growth spurt during Q2 2021.

The results of this survey show that the members of the BMC and participants in the survey are currently utilising electricity with a 67 percent sustainable power mix. Based on this data, it is estimated that the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix had grown to approximately 56 percent during Q2 2021, making it one of the most sustainable industries globally.

BMC report

An Attempt to Demystify the Bitcoin Mining Industry

Bitcoin’s energy usage has been the primary topic for its detractors, highlighting environmental concerns in the long term. A new wave of criticism came with Elon Musk’s decision to reverse bitcoin payments for Tesla vehicles, causing the price of Bitcoin to drop even further. 

However, recent investigations have shown that banks and gold consume more energy than Bitcoin, and most miners are moving to clean power using hydrothermal and geothermal wasted energy in countries such as Iceland and Norway. 

The team at Galaxy Digital Mining wrote an excellent white paper examining #bitcoin’s energy usage.

Did you know that 19x more energy is lost in transmission than Bitcoin miners consume? Great research here—and we open sourced our methodology.https://t.co/bTR40GdiSP pic.twitter.com/wjd92RmC1l

— Galaxy Research (@glxyresearch) May 14, 2021

A recent example of clean, renewable energy is El Salvador’s plan to build a huge mining operation using its geothermal excess.

Some Pundits Are Not Convinced

It seems this report is backed by the BMC’s own analysis, assumptions and methodologies, and the validity of the data appears unclear as most responses were from a subset of the network.

During a live virtual briefing, Nic Carter, a general partner of Castle Island Ventures, asked Saylor how the Council came to these figures. Saylor said the report was based on an estimate of off-grid and unsustainable power.

Then we allocated another portion that we applied to our BMC sample in order to get a blend. The blend ended up being slightly more than the electricity grid.

I think if you back into it and take the 56 percent and then look at the 67 or 68 percent that we don’t have, that’s the out-of-sample and then you know that number is … 50 percent sustainable … so … generally it works out that the out-of-sample mix is … assumed to be about 50 percent sustainable power and we tested that with a variety of analysts.

Michael Saylor on Bitcoin’s Sustainable Energy Mix

But some people were not convinced, knowing that the responses were from mostly mining companies that worked together to “provide critical information to the general public”.

This is really laughable. No methodology disclosed, very dubious result and super small sample of like 5% of the total hashrate. No one knows what the energy mix will look like until the hashrate from China relocates and a new proper study is conducted. Why do people trust this?

— Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) July 1, 2021