To Whom It May Concern

Market Meditations | July 18, 2022

Regulation is always in season. With states like Texas becoming a mining hub in the United States, some congress members feel like it’s time to have more transparency into the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining.

  • On Friday, July 15, House and Senate members sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DoE) imploring regulators to require crypto miners to report more comprehensive information about emissions and energy usage.
  • The authors of the letter included Elizabeth Warren and Jared Huffman, two outspoken advocates for aggressive regulatory measures ranging a broad spectrum of topics related to the cryptocurrency industry
  • The letter, which could easily be mistaken for something you’d hear if you asked your grandfather to explain “how crypto works”, claimed that the presence of mining operations resulted in residential electricity bills increasing by “up to $300”.
  • The correspondence also requested clarification on whether or not the agencies had the authority to require relevant information from crypto miners. This request was likely triggered by June’s Supreme Court ruling, which revised the ability of the EPA to issue sweeping rules with broad implications.

While mining has its shares of both political allies and opponents, a growing majority of American politicians are ramping up demand for clarity. In the meantime, the impact of a regulatory vacuum remains hard to measure.