Vitalik Buterin opposed the moratorium on mining in New York

As an alternative, the Ethereum co-founder suggested the implementation of carbon emission fees

06.06.2022 - 06:35

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2 min

What’s new? Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized a bill approved by the New York State Senate to impose a moratorium on fossil fuel-based cryptocurrency mining. According to Buterin, instead of bans, the authorities should have imposed carbon emission fees.

Ultimately I agree with this (that is, I oppose banning PoW). The government picking and choosing which specific applications are an okay use of electricity or not is a bad idea. Better to just implement carbon pricing, and use some of the revenues to compensate low-income users. https://t.co/NnBzmv5mYz— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 4, 2022

What else did Buterin state? The Ethereum co-founder believes that the government should not choose which spheres are allowed to use electricity and which are not. Implementing emission fees would be a better solution, in which case part of the proceeds could be used by the authorities to compensate low-income consumers.

Vitalik Buterin’s publication was a response to a tweet by Bruce Fenton, New Hampshire US Senate candidate, who said that no government has the right to dictate what software should be used.

No government has the right to tell you what software to run.Code is speech. https://t.co/mm1Ndd75im— Bruce Fenton for US Senate 🇺🇸 (@brucefenton) June 4, 2022

Earlier, the New York State Senate approved a bill that imposes a moratorium on mining cryptocurrencies with the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm. The ban would be in effect for two years and would apply to mining that uses non-renewable energy sources. The law must be signed by State Governor Kathy Hochul before it will take effect.

According to the document, some cryptocurrency mining companies began acquiring retired premises of fossil fuel plants and power plants. An explanatory note to the document states that the new bill aims to stop the “comprehensive generic environmental impact.”

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