Ro Khanna Wants to Regulate Bitcoin

Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) said that Bitcoin mining should be regulated in the same fashion as proposed carbon taxes. He says the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which have been in the spotlight recently due to their investors and fluctuating valuations, should be taxed for their considerable energy consumption. Bitcoin transactions require an enormous amount of energy. Dutch bank ING estimates that a single transaction consumes enough electricity to power a home for weeks. The expensive and energy-consuming verification process of transactions, otherwise known as mining, is meant to deter crime and fraud. Because Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rose to prominence in 2017, research claims that the total energy consumption from last year was more than the annual usage of 159 countries. "You could have environmental regulations of what could be used or a tax on the use of the mines that are going into the bitcoin, so that if they have externalities that they're causing the environment, that they have to pay a tax on that," Khanna said. "I think more broadly we need much more regulation, whether it's against fraud, whether it's against environmental harms, whether it's against the use of bitcoin to foster terrorism. We need to have much more regulation there and we need to see all the regulations that have come from last hundreds of years for the banks." More here.