A new report by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) draws attention to the threat that crypto mining poses to the environment, specifically with regard to the massive amounts of energy required in the whole process.
One aspect of the broader cryptocurrency dialogue that tends to get lost among more salacious talking points would be the environmental toll of extracting digital currencies. According to the report, total global electricity usage for crypto-assets has exceeded the annual electricity usage for countries like Australia and Argentina as of August 2022.
