2 years ago
Several crypto stakeholders person criticized the New York Times April 10 study connected Bitcoin (BTC) mining, arguing that it does not bespeak happenings successful the industry.
What NYT wrote
According to the report, Bitcoin mining consumes arsenic overmuch energy arsenic a tiny city. The study added that the activities bash not make economical value, and taxpayers indispensable wage miners to unopen down during periods of vigor crisis.
New York Times notably identified the Bitdeer mining operations saying the institution made implicit $18 cardinal for shutting down its miners for 4 days during a wintertime tempest successful Texas.
Overall, New York Times identified 34 Bitcoin mining facilities successful the U.S. and estimated they usage much than 3,900 megawatts of energy combined. It added that they origin 16.4 cardinal tons of c emissions annually.
The accepted media outlet noted, “each of the 34 operations it identified uses astatine slightest 30,000 times arsenic overmuch powerfulness arsenic the mean U.S. home.”
Crypto assemblage critique report; questions NYT data
The study has drawn terrible disapproval from crypto stakeholders, with astir questioning New York’s information connected emissions and however it was obtained.
New York Times said it relied connected “both nationalist and confidential records arsenic good arsenic the results of studies it commissioned.”
Pierre Rochard, the V.P. of Research astatine Riot Platforms, said:
“[There are] tons of fictitious fractional-reserve c accounting. Cooking the books to fabricate emissions.”
Riot is 1 of the BTC miners mentioned successful the NYT piece. According to the report, the miner has the astir power-intensive cognition successful the country.
The Chief Strategy Officer astatine Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein, besides said the portion was packed with misinformation.
According to Gladstein, NYT deliberately chose not to explicate what Bitcoin does, truthful readers won’t spot its worth and see its vigor depletion waste.
Additionally, ClimateTech capitalist Daniel Batten noted that the NYT nonfiction deliberately overstated fossil substance usage by the apical six miners connected its database by an mean of 81.7%. It did this by “using peculiar accounting rules reserved lone for Bitcoin miners.” The peculiar method utilized is called “marginal emissions accounting.”
“We person grounds of importantly overstated existent percentages of fossil substance emissions, and utilizing overwhelmingly incomplete datasets to enactment a thesis.”
Batten added that the study besides cherry-picked its data, selecting lone 2 of the 26 U.S. and Canadian miners utilizing 90% sustainable energy. Furthermore, adjacent successful the lawsuit of miners chiefly utilizing renewable energy, the study focused connected their slightest renewable energy-backed sites.
CEO of Satoshi Act Fund, Dennis Porter, described the study arsenic a hit piece and noted that NYT adjacent got the sanction of the municipality wherever Bitdeer excavation is located successful Texas wrong.
Meanwhile, this is not the archetypal clip NYT has drawn dense disapproval from the crypto industry. For example, the media outlet was heavy criticized for covering Sam Bankman-Fried and his fallen crypto empire.
The station Crypto stakeholders knock New York Times for ‘hit piece’ connected Bitcoin mining appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.
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