NY Senate approves lighter version of bill targeting emissions from bitcoin mining operations in the state

NY Senate approves lighter version of bill targeting emissions from bitcoin mining operations in the state

The New York Senate that will The legislation would seek to ban the state from granting permits to new bitcoin mining operations that plug directly into the state's carbon-emitting power plants. It now heads to the state Assembly for approval. The bill singled out the magnitude of computing power required by the proof-of-work method, which it claimed consumes as much energy as an average American household uses in a month. "The annual global energy use for proof-of-work authentication is equivalent to that of the country of Sweden and exceeds the energy consumption of all the global activity of major tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook combined," the bill said. Proof-of-work is the foundation many cryptocurrencies are built on. The method is used to validate transactions and mine new tokens. "Given that there are at least 15 other methods to validate transaction it is simultaneously completely unnecessary," Assemblymember Anna Kelles . The bill is a that aimed to for three years until the state could assess its impact on the environment. The senators also narrowed the scope to new projects and existing operations. The bitcoin mining industry, the bill said, is expanding in the state of New York. Most of