More legislators discard anti-mining proposals

Sooner or later in their careers, many politicians with “green” ambitions will encounter this fundamental choice:

? attack a nascent industry with easily quantifiable energy spending and a confusing mission of bringing new money,

or

? attack a well-established industry with a hardly quantifiable energy spending that strives to maintain the status quo.

Between the two, it does not really matter which industry is creating more pollution – the voters won’t go as far as to check it – but it matters a lot which lobby will fund your next campaign.

⛏️ Unsurprisingly, many politicians rush on crypto with all their eloquence and influence, choosing to ignore the fact that most of its mining energy comes from renewables and that mining can help stimulate ecological transition in so many ways. The problem here, however, is that even with flawed arguments, impeding crypto mining would mean discriminating an activity based on its energy spending – and such precedent could open the door to very serious consequences.

This may be the reason why so far most mining-stifling incentives did not give any result (with the exception of China, of course, where entrepreneurial freedom is among the least important concepts):

⚖️ in March the EU Parliament decided not to pass a PoW-cryptocurrencies ban,

⚖️ this week the New York Senate declined to include the proposal of a 3-year crypto mining moratorium in the state,

⚖️ this Tuesday the Norwegian Parliament voted against the draft law banning crypto mining.

Have we reached an inflection point in crypto mining public perception, or is it politicians’ fear of being accused of stifling larger innovation and business activity?