Elon Musk met with top North American Bitcoin miners over renewable energy

It was a little over a week ago that Elon Musk made a surprise announcement that Tesla was suspending the ability to purchase their vehicle line-up with Bitcoin. The news caused a schism in the cryptocurrency community (and a steep decline in Bitcoin’s price) because Musk said the move was made over environmental concerns.

However in the meantime the magnanimous billionaire was still actively involved in crypto-related works. Today we’re learning that outreach also involved Bitcoin’s top mining circles.

"Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising," Musk shared.

The Bitcoin Mining Council is the group label that came out of the talks, according to MicroStrategy co-founder and Bitcoin enthusiast Michael J. Saylor. "Argo Blockchain, Hive Blockchain, Galaxy Digital, Block Cap and Hut8 Mining" were cited as in attendance, per Cryptonary.com.

"Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between [Elon Musk] & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide."

In the context provided in a recent report by Harvard Business Review, if we’re talking about the immediate energy output from direct mining, the 110 Terawatt Hours per year seems intimidating (as opposed to simply trading Bitcoin which uses much less). In addition, when considering the diversity of options available for mining in terms of energy usage, compared to other industries, cryptocurrency has more of an adaptable advantage.

It wasn’t just Musk that caused a cryptocurrency earthquake, across the board. Recently regulatory crackdowns in the Chinese market targeting Bitcoin and other digital currencies dampened investor enthusiasm.

Ars Technica speculates China “will likely ban all bitcoin mining soon.”

Meanwhile in the United States there was a similar regulatory scare as the US Treasury publicly called for stricter regulatory compliance with the IRS. This included mandating transfers over $10,000 to be reported to the IRS.

But an update today from Bitcoin.com suggests that American lawmakers won’t have the same zeal as China did, when it comes to any potential crypto legislation from Washington DC.