White House seeks to suffocate crypto with high taxes

The White House recently put out a blog post seeking to justify 30% electricity taxes to be levied on crypto miners. 

Punishing crypto miners

In line with the suppressive US government measures already applied to the cryptocurrency industry, the White House has now proposed what it calls the Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) excise tax, to be included in the new budget for this year.

In a blog post on the White House government website, it was laid out how the tax would be a punitive measure that would oblige crypto miners to “pay the full cost they impose on others”, and this cost was perceived to be more environmental pollution, higher energy prices, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

High energy use?

The White House blog post estimated that the energy used by the 34 biggest crypto mining operations used the same energy as 3 million residential homes that surround them.

Also, the electricity usage of crypto miners was said to be similarly equivalent to that of all home computers or the total of all lighting for homes.

Source: Whitehouse.gov

The blog post made sure to tug at the heartstrings of the US people by suggesting that the energy consumption of crypto miners led to pollution that was felt disproportionately by “low-income neighbourhoods, and communities of colour”.

The blog post also addressed the concern that the crypto mining industry would just move offshore, by stating that other countries, including China, had also restricted crypto mining.

Opinion

Huge strides have been made in the crypto mining industry in the switch to alternative and greener forms of energy. However, even if crypto mining were actually more energy consuming, and dirtier, it would still be worth the price to pay in order to have the likes of Bitcoin, which is the people’s currency, and not able to be manipulated by governments or banks.

The US government is putting out a narrative that cryptocurrencies are bad. Why? The current monetary system is run by the central banks. It is becoming obsolete, the banks are failing, and inflation is rife. 

If the people figure out that there is a way to escape all of this, there will be huge inflows into the likes of Bitcoin, and fiat currencies will speed towards zero value at an even faster rate than they are already doing.

Crypto mining energy consumption will decrease as technology evolves. However, the Federal Reserve and other central banks will continue to try and print their way out of debt, at massive life-changing cost to the same poor communities mentioned in the White House blog post. Educating oneself on the issues is the only way to arrive at this conclusion.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.