Depending on how and where it is done, mining for Bitcoin (BTC) can be both good and bad. But countries that plan to ban it should know that miners won’t think twice about going somewhere else. Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, FTX.US President Brett Harrison said this.
Harrison made it clear during a Davos panel discussion with crypto investors, researchers, and other interested parties that banning crypto mining is not a good idea and should not be pursued by those who are worried about the carbon footprint of crypto mining.
“Sometimes Bitcoin Mining is a good thing because it helps stabilize a renewable grid, and sometimes it’s a bad thing because it drives up energy prices in a small town,” Harrison said.
He also said that if a country “totally banned it,” that country would not be able to regulate Bitcoin Mining in a better way. “It would just move somewhere else,” he said.
Bitcoin Mining Banned
Harrison said, “This is what we saw in China when they banned mining. It moved right away.” He also said that some of the mining business moved to the U.S., where it was powered by a mix of renewable energy and natural gas, and “a lot” of it moved to Kazakhstan, where it was powered by coal, “which is much worse than the hydro that was happening in China.”
When asked how people can agree on which consensus mechanisms are good and which ones are bad, and why different “tribes” in the crypto community are against each other, Harrison said that this is a lot like politics.
“I think what you see online and on Twitter about these different ways to reach a consensus aren’t too different from what you see in any kind of political debate. When it comes to these issues, he said, “you see how a loud minority kind of drowns out the quiet minority.”
He also said, “Most people in the crypto world want this technology to grow in a good way. We don’t want to pick winners and losers right away. Instead, we want to see how it goes and let the market decide who will do best.
Harrison also said that FTX and other companies in the crypto space have tried to work together to send what he called “a unified message” to regulators and not “sow seeds of discord” on online forums where there are “religious debates” about whether proof-of-work (PoW) or proof-of-stake (PoS) is the best consensus mechanism in crypto.
Harrison added, “As blockchain users, the most important thing we have to do is tell the real stories of how blockchains are being used.”
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Interesting read. Much to learn about concerning the world’s economy in the WEF indeed. Perhaps Bitcoin won’t become the ”official” crypto in future, but I bet the world is moving towards digitalizing monetary transactions.
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