Mining Council: We Must Counter ‘Misinformation’ About Bitcoin’s Environmental Damage

“We are not trying to fix bitcoin.” 

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor‘s remark Wednesday at a meeting of the new Bitcoin Mining Council seemed to encapsulate the gist of what the event, on Twitter Spaces and attended by more than 7,000 listeners, was trying to accomplish. 

There were few concrete next steps discussed this time. Instead, the meeting became another way for bitcoin industry representatives to air their grievances about those claims that bitcoin mining is bad for the environment.   

For instance, here’s what Perianne Boring, president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, had to say:

• “One thing that fuels public policy is the narratives in the media. Headlines drive conversations in Washington as well as in the states and in public policy circles.
• “We really sounded the alarm towards the end of 2020 when we saw a huge outtake in negative reporting of bitcoin mining. A lot of it is not intellectually honest. When you have a number of stories and headlines, misinformation, false narratives, we will see reactions to that from a policy perspective.”

Saylor said the Bitcoin Mining Council’s responsibility is to provide a “sharing, cooperative and informative space [from which] people can learn the benefits of bitcoin mining.” 

He said not having that “informative space” – or reading the headlines – has prompted politicians to move against the cryptocurrency.  

“Bitcoin has external threats,” Saylor said. “The threat is not bitcoiners talking to each other. The threat is people that don’t understand bitcoin.”