Report blasts Bitcoin mining for pollution – but bitcoiners aren’t buying it

Bitcoin OGs are skeptical of a report published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) on Wednesday, which details how Bitcoin miners are “polluting” communities across the United States.

Through six case studies, the non-profit group says it has documented how the mining industry disrupts Americans’ daily lives through air, water and noise pollution.

“The incessant noise created by mining continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week, driving nearby residents to desperation,” the report tired. One of the case studies followed a couple in Cook County, Georgia, whose hearing was allegedly “damaged” thanks to one of Blockstreamnearby Bitcoin mining facility.

Another case study focused on Stronghold Digital Mining in Venango Country, Pennsylvania. The company burns coal waste to power Bitcoin mining machines, then spreads the remaining coal ash over land to be used as fertilizer. The EWG claimed that the toxic pollutants in that ash fertilizer are carried into nearby rivers and streams when it rains, thereby polluting the water.

“What these mines have in common is the use of proof of work, which is wasteful by design,” the report claimed, calling it “highly inefficient” to require large amounts of “fossil fuel-generated electricity” to operate.

Proof of work is a consensus mechanism used by Bitcoin and other decentralized blockchains that allows all network participants to agree on the sequential order of transactions, while issuing new coins in a non-subjective manner. Powerful computers compete in a race to construct Bitcoin’s next block of transactions by solving a complex math problem and are rewarded with new BTC for solving it first.

Many modern blockchains use an alternative consensus mechanism called proof of stake, which uses cryptocurrency instead of energy to secure the network. The EWG has long called on Bitcoin developers to change the code and cut energy use in a similar way, supporting another well-funded environmental campaign to do so.

However, prominent Bitcoin developers are not remotely interested in such a high-stakes protocol change. Blockstream CEO (and suspect Bitcoin creator) Adam Back says energy costs to produce new Bitcoin are necessary for it to function as money.

“People buy digital gold to protect against inflation and monetary erosion. Central banks are buying physical gold for similar reasons at a record pace, he added Decrypt via Twitter. “Gold is expensive to mine analogically, and it’s also inherently hard money.”

When asked by EWG about Blockstream’s noise pollution, Blockstream mine manager Chris Cook described the facility as “barely audible … crickets are definitely louder.”

Longtime Bitcoin developer Luke Dash Jr. also disputed that Bitcoin was a source of environmental damage, arguing that the fiat currency system is much more harmful.

“PoW is actually good for the environment,” he said Decrypt via DM. “It makes clean energy like solar viable on its own, where previously it would normally have required fossil fuels to compliment it.”

Meanwhile, the developer dismissed proof of stake as a “scam,” citing a 2015 essay describes the system as “unusable”.

“By relying only on resources in the system, proof of stake cannot be used to form a distributed consensus, as it depends on the very story it is trying to form to enforce the loss of value,” said report author Andrew Poelstra.