Bitcoin (BTC) has time and again proven its critics wrong in many aspects. Among the usual points of contention lay in its alleged lack of intrinsic value, which has already been refuted by its increasing use cases, especially in the payments sector, and growing adoption by institutional players. However, one that remains hard to defend is its energy usage. Now, the US government is attempting to deal another blow to the digital asset and other cryptocurrencies in its recent “emergency” declaration.
The Crypto Energy Usage Probe
According to Forbes, US President Joe Biden’s administration, through the Office of the Management and Budget (OMB), just initiated an “emergency collection of data request” for crypto assets. This directive authorizes the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to launch an investigation into the energy use of “cryptocurrency mining facilities.”
“We intend to continue to analyze and write about the energy implications of cryptocurrency mining activities in the United States,” EIA Administrator Dr. Joseph DeCarolis explained in an official statement. “We will specifically focus on how the energy demand for cryptocurrency mining is evolving, identify geographic areas of high growth, and quantify the sources of electricity used to meet cryptocurrency mining demand.”
The EIA reasoned that crypto mining operations can cause “public harm” due to their intensive energy requirements. It classified crypto miners as entities that use high-powered computers to verify transactions and maintain their respective blockchains in exchange for newly minted coin rewards. Thus, they are required by the order to furnish the EIA with particular details of their energy usage.
“Recognizing that this emergency collection is experimental and provisional with the understood intention that EIA wants to build to a new standard collection,” stated the OMB’s approval terms.
Bitcoin Being Targeted
Both the press release of the EIA and the approval of the OMB noticeably avoided direct mention of Bitcoin, BTC, or firms associated with the digital asset’s mining. Nonetheless, it was seen by the crypto community as a precursor to a possible crackdown on Bitcoin mining.
This brings us back to the ominous comments made by Bitcoin supporters and government critics previously. One of them happens to be former US presidential candidate Ron Desantis who warned that the Biden administration has “it out for Bitcoin” and is looking to “killing it.”
The Texas Blockchain Council also aired its suspicions over the order and viewed it as a direct attack on the digital asset sector. Meanwhile, Riot Platform Head of Research Pierre Rochard interpreted the designation of the probe as an “emergency” due to Bitcoin winning against the US dollar. He cited “the $3 trillion deficit, $34 trillion debt, and insolvent fiat banking system” as the likely causes of the sudden cause of alarm by the Federal government in his recent post on X.
Some who replied to Rochard added that the administration may be fearing the impending collapse of the US dollar while others reinforced the idea that the government may be threatened by Bitcoin simply because the powers-that-be could not control or manipulate it like Fiat currency.