Jumaane Williams, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate seeking a seat in New York, says he wants to end much of the cryptocurrency mining taking place in the Big Apple. While he’s not entirely against cryptocurrency mining, he says he wants most facilities to shut down so they can have time to reassess all the energy they’re using.
Williams wants NY to take a ‘mining break’
Williams made the announcement at a warehouse in the Finger Lakes, where the Greenidge Generation plant recently opened its facilities for a bitcoin mining project. He worries that cryptocurrency mining uses a lot of electricity and believes that the sand is leading the planet into a dark hole that it is unlikely to come out of in the future.
In an interview, Williams said:
We have to have the will to force these companies, if that's what they're going to do, they have to do it in a more climate-friendly way.Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is how Eric Adams, the newly elected mayor of New York City, will take this news if Williams becomes governor of the state. Adams has shown himself in recent weeks to be a big fan of cryptocurrencies, converting several of his municipal checks into bitcoin and Ethereum through Coinbase.
He often jokes online with Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, about which city is the most promising for the future of cryptocurrencies. Adams also stated that he wants bitcoin and blockchain technology to be taught in New York public schools so that children can be prepared for the future of payments.
With such a strict ban on cryptocurrency mining and related activities, Adams could face a political enemy within his own party.
But to be fair to Williams, he has a lot of people on his side, including mega-industry bosses like Tesla’s Elon Musk. About a year ago, the South African businessman shocked the world by announcing that he would allow the purchase of electric vehicles with bitcoin. From there, the coin rose to around $57,000 per unit, the highest in history, with many convinced that a new crypto threshold had been crossed.
End of BTC payments for car buyers
Sadly, things didn’t last, as just a few weeks later, Musk claimed that he was rescinding the decision because he wasn’t sure bitcoin miners were using their energy well and didn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of the planet.
Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank” fame was also quick to join the conversation. He said that he would no longer buy bitcoins mined in China, as the country was not known for employing environmentally friendly mining methods.