Crypto benefits not worth the energy and pollution

John Olsen’s commentary “Embrace crypto for NY’S economic benefit,” April 9, argued against a two-year moratorium proposed for proof of work cryptocurrency mining in the state as detailed in Senate bill S6486B, which proposes a generic environmental impact statement to evaluate the full effect of this industry.

The commentary’s author, a Blockchain Association strategist, wrote that regulators must nurture the industry because it “…promises massive investments and well-paying jobs” and that “... nearly two-thirds of the energy used by crypto mining in the U.S. comes from renewable sources.”

Unfortunately, investments in crypto often involve reviving fossil fuel plants to supply massive amounts of electricity solely for the questionable purpose of financial speculation when far more efficient approaches are available than proof of work.

As to jobs, a study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance found that in 150 cryptocurrency companies in 38 countries, approximately 2,000 people are employed full-time by crypto. The math is simple: the average number of employees in one company is 13 people. That small number of jobs seems hardly worth it for our state to embrace this new and unproven industry whose enormous energy use and greenhouse gas pollution make it nearly impossible to meet Climate

Leadership and Community Protection Act goals and that creates significant thermal pollution when waterways are used to cool its many computers working overtime.

A moratorium is needed to objectively study the effects of crypto independent of misleading information from the cryptocurrency industry promising questionable economic benefit. Barbara Spink

Albany