Mike Novogratz: BTC Doesn't Use That Much Energy
Mike Novogratz – the CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. – says that bitcoin doesn’t consume nearly as much energy as everyone seems to think it does.
Mike Novogratz Discusses How Much Energy BTC Really Uses
Energy consumption has been a big topic in the world of bitcoin and cryptocurrency over the past year or so. Environmentalists everywhere seem to believe that mining crypto is somehow going to destroy the planet or render it unusable in some way. Even big names in the digital currency world have somehow gotten involved in this argument.
Elon Musk, for example, is the man behind billion-dollar companies such as Tesla and SpaceX. He has been a huge proponent of assets such as bitcoin and Dogecoin, which he recently referred to as the “people’s coin.” Earlier in the year, he commented that he was going to allow Tesla customers to purchase electric vehicles with BTC, though just a few weeks later, this decision was rescinded given that he felt crypto miners were not using the energy they had available to them well enough. He also said that they were not controlling their emissions.
Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” fame also got involved in the energy argument. He stated that he would no longer be purchasing any more bitcoin mined in China, claiming that the country did not utilize environmentally friendly extraction methods.
The battle between environmentalists and bitcoin miners has raged for years, and now it looks like Novogratz is on the side of the latter. In a recent interview, he commented that bitcoin doesn’t use that much energy, even going so far as to say that Christmas lights are more consumptive. He stated:
It’s just not true. Bitcoin uses 0.12 percent of total energy usage. That’s less than Christmas lights.
There have been tons of papers published saying that bitcoin uses more energy than entire countries such as Denmark, Iceland, and even Argentina. However, Novogratz says this is all based on weak data. He comments that many of these countries invoke low energy use anyway, and that their populations are also relatively small. Thus, the comparisons are not valid, and unless environmentalists want to compare bitcoin’s energy usage to those of fully populated regions such as the U.S. and China, the studies hold no merit.
He also says that many bitcoin and crypto miners have also switched over to green energy over the past year or so – something that really hasn’t made its way into news outlets yet. For example, approximately 80 percent of the bitcoin mining energy employed by Galaxy Digital is green, and he thinks the company will reach 100 percent by the end of 2022.
We Have to Control These Stories
He says:
This is a story that our industry has to combat because it became kind of bad news, and now it seems to be taking us back. It’s just not true.
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