According to a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report recently published, cryptocurrency industry operations in the United States utilize about as much electricity as all home computers throughout the country. This same report came out with some possible ways that the Biden administration could address these difficulties or barriers.
"Depending on the energy intensity of the technology used, crypto assets could hinder broader efforts to achieve net-zero carbon pollution consistent with U.S. climate commitments and goals," the White House office stated.
Crypto assets, which are essentially digital assets that are utilized while using cryptographic methods, necessitate the usage of large measures of electricity. This can potentially lead to the utilization of excessive greenhouse gas emissions, on top of pollution, noise, or other environmental impacts.
This same report has also revealed that crypto asset operations use up between 0.9% and 1.7% of total electricity usage in the United States. The majority of greenhouse gas pollution has occurred because of factors like crypto asset activity.
The report has requested federal agencies to gather data from utilities and crypto miners regarding their exact level of energy usage. This is because in past years, there has been much of a challenge in terms of assessing the exact amount that energy miners were utilizing. Data such as this can be utilized in order to determine that cryptocurrency mining does not interfere with climate goals.
Presently, the United States holds the biggest amount of bitcoin mining on a global scale. It constitutes for over 38% of all worldwide bitcoin activity, which went up by around 3.5% in 2020.
Crypto asset technologies could possibly hold the United States back from obtaining its National Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. The ultimate goal is to prevent potentially harmful environmental impacts caused by these crypto asset technologies, which would involve diminishing the usage of energy intensity and encouraging the usage of clean electricity.