Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk have always had a close relationship and both share similar philosophies when it comes to freedom of speech, tech's ability to transform the future, and the potential of cryptocurrencies. However, both aren't 100% in the Peter Thiel mode as they do have liberal inclinations on matters like climate change and immigration.
Last year, both were engaged in an online debate about the negative externalities created by cryptocurrency mining and its massive power usage. So, the recent news wasn't too surprising that Dorsey's Block,
Blockstream is a blockchain technology company, co-founded by Adam Back, a British cryptographer. He said that the facility will be a 'proof of concept' for 100% renewable-fueled bitcoin mining at scale. and a member of the "cypherpunk" crew, told CNBC on the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami that the mining facility is designed to be a proof of concept for 100% renewable energy bitcoin mining at scale.
The facility will also publicly show real-time metrics of its performance with stats such as power output and total bitcoin mined. The goal is to show that mining bitcoin can create incentives to build zero-emission power generation. Increased spending on this has the potential to lower the cost curve for such projects. And, the facility is located in West Texas, where there is plenty of solar energy and wind power..
In essence, the bitcoin miners are arbitraging cheap power in exchange for bitcoin. It can be turned off when the grid is overheated and turned on when there is excess capacity. It will also incentivize more building of power generation and transmission.
And for bitcoin, it has the potential to make the network more resilient in terms of diversity of miners. Another positive is that it takes the criticism of bitcoin as being a negative due to increasing emissions means off the table and instead turns it into a positive.
