Vitalik Buterin criticises New York’s Bitcoin mining moratorium

Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, joined the criticism of New York state’s moratorium on mining using electricity generated from carbon-based sources. He said authorities should not pick which specific applications may consume energy.

Ultimately I agree with this (that is, I oppose banning PoW). The government picking and choosing which specific applications are an okay use of electricity or not is a bad idea. Better to just implement carbon pricing, and use some of the revenues to compensate low-income users. https://t.co/NnBzmv5mYz

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 4, 2022

“The government choosing which specific applications can use electricity, and which cannot, is a bad idea. Better to simply impose a carbon emissions tax and use part of the proceeds to compensate low-income consumers,” he wrote.

approved a two-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mining powered by electricity generated from carbon-based sources.

Existing operators or those seeking permits to mine digital assets will be allowed to continue operating. During the two-year period, authorities plan to study the potential environmental impact of mining on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm.

Earlier, Nick Carter, general partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coin Metrics, noted that New York authorities have effectively banned SHA-256 hashing by data centers.

Will red states respond and ban computation taking place in their borders used for pornography, Netflix, and Disney? Is a world where the state itself decrees what is an acceptable use of electricity or not one you really want to live in?

— nic carter (@nic__carter) June 3, 2022

“Will Republican states respond and ban computations taking place within their borders that are used in pornography, Netflix and Disney? Is a world where the state itself decrees what is an acceptable use of electricity or not one you really want to live in?”, he said.

The initiative was also criticized by Bruce Fenton, a USA Senate candidate from New Hampshire and former executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation. He argued that lawmakers have encroached on free speech.

No government has the right to tell you what software to run.

Code is speech. https://t.co/mm1Ndd75im

— Bruce Fenton for US Senate 🇺🇸 (@brucefenton) June 4, 2022

“No government has the right to tell you what software to run. Code is speech,” he wrote.

Abra founder Bill Barhydt shared a similar view.

The FBI has supported banning strong encryption without backdoors for over a generation. But the «founding fathers» knew better. Revolutions require secret messages. /5 https://t.co/b9cVX75iUn

— Bill Barhydt (@billbarhydt) June 4, 2022

“By banning SHA-256 (i.e., PoW mining), New York struck at an existing First Amendment precedent on freedom of speech, a precedent that has lasted for more than 200 years. The FBI supported bans on secure encryption without backdoors for generations. But the founding fathers knew better. Revolutions require secret correspondences,” he wrote.

Recall, in June 2022 a group of technology specialists published an open letter, calling on the U.S. Congress to resist lobbying by participants in the cryptocurrency industry and to take action against the developing sector.