Riot Platforms responded to Biden's actionsJason Les, who heads Riot Platforms (formerly Riot Blockchain), the largest publicly traded bitcoin mining company in the United States and Canada, has entered into an off-the-record discussion with the administration of US President Joe Biden, given the latter's bias toward restrictive cryptocurrency policies.
Apparently referring to the ongoing banking cataclysm in the U.S., the head of the company noted that bitcoin blockchain could perform a value transfer function no matter what the state of the U.S. banking system.
He noted that bitcoin mining consumes only 0.2% of the world's energy, which is comparable to how much electricity it takes to run all the refrigerators in the United States. 60% of the energy consumed by miners comes from renewable sources, while bitcoin mining itself stimulates the development of solar and wind power generation.
Despite these bitcoin parameters, "the current US administration, as well as a group of environmentalists and a number of politicians, intend to de facto ban bitcoin mining by restricting access to energy, and through a mechanism so high taxation that the mining industry in the US will have every reason to cease its activities in the US entirely and leave for other countries." At the same time, Riot Platforms stated that the resulting weakening of the mining industry in the U.S. will ultimately be "very beneficial" to Russia in particular. According to the company's estimates, the U.S. "risks losing its leading role in the world in the digital economy.
