Environmental concerns are propaganda from proof-of-stake lobbyists.

Michael Saylor, a founding member of the Bitcoin lobby group Bitcoin Mining Council and the former CEO of MicroStrategy, published a letter outlining his thoughts on Bitcoin's environmental concerns. In it, he, predictably, believes that recent debates about the energy intensity of Bitcoin mining are exaggerated. Indeed, he believes that the recurring debate is part of the lobbying efforts of competing crypto projects based on proof of stake.

Proof-of-work prohibition


Saylor's letter came just days after the United States government issued a report. This looked closely at the crypto industry's environmental impact. The report's authors also considered prohibiting Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism due to its high energy intensity. Saylor emphatically disagrees.

When viewed globally, Bitcoin's contribution to climate change is nothing more than a "rounding error," according to him. He claims that "99.92% of global CO2 emissions" are due to use for industry and other purposes other than Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin is "neither a problem nor a solution in terms of reducing emissions."


A study conducted by the aforementioned Bitcoin Mining Council may prove him correct. It claims that nearly 60% of the energy used in bitcoin mining is derived from renewable sources. Saylor even believes that mining digital currency using the proof-of-work method could be beneficial to the environment. For example, mining at "stranded" energy source sites, such as methane gas.

According to estimates, the Ethereum merge will be completed on Thursday. If everything goes as planned, the upgrade will convert Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, significantly reducing its environmental impact.

"Proof-of-stake lobby"

His criticism of proponents of proof-of-stake came just hours before the Ethereum Merge, which saw the second-largest blockchain's consensus mechanism switch from proof of work to proof of stake. As a result, the letter reads in some places like a smash on the currently second-placed blockchain.

In recent months, the Ethereum developers and community have emphasized the significantly lower energy consumption following the switch. Passive references to the energy intensity of bitcoin mining, according to Saylor, are "guerrilla marketing." According to him, this is an attempt by "crypto promoters and lobbyists to divert the attention of politicians, regulators, and the public away from the inconvenient truth that proof-of-stake crypto assets are simply unregistered securities."