Kevin O’Leary – aka Mr. Wonderful on the program “Shark Tank” – has been one of the biggest advocates of green crypto mining. He has often called out China for its lack of attention towards this and has even stated that he will not be buying any more crypto mined in China, even likening the asset to “blood coin” in recent statements.
Kevin O’Leary: It’s Time to Become Environmentally Friendly
In a new interview, he discusses why it is so important that bitcoin miners utilize cleaner methods of energy such as hydroelectricity over coal to extract new units of BTC from the blockchain. Among the questions he was asked recently included why it is so important to do this when so many BTC have been mined already.
As it stands, approximately 18.5 million of the world’s 21 million bitcoin units have been extracted. With only 2.5 million left to go, one would think that the world has already been impacted environmentally by BTC mining, and that there is nowhere to go from here. According to O’Leary, this is not quite true.
He explains that one of the big reasons why miners need to change things up to be more environmentally friendly is because right now, common extraction methods are really turning off institutional investors, and without these companies and individuals in play, bitcoin can never become a legitimate or mainstream currency. O’Leary says:
Institutions will not buy it until this problem is solved. I completely understand the discussion about why it could be a red herring, but it does not matter. These institutions will not buy it until we somehow come up with a solution. We need to solve that because there is a trillion dollars-worth of buying power that we are not getting to.
Institutions Need to Be Involved
He says that many institutions are looking to invest approximately three percent of their portfolios in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies should they find it “palatable,” but so long as bitcoin continues to follow old energy methods, these institutions are not likely to consider bitcoin modern enough or different enough to buy it. O’Leary says:
A tremendous amount of interested capital wants to come into this asset class, but it cannot do it right now because it has got the wrong messaging around it. The truth is bitcoin is good for the environment because it is forcing these miners to find the most efficient way to create the power to do the mining. There is no other industry that does that… As a sector, as an industry, as a voice, we have failed. We have not delivered that message successfully. It is going to start here today.
O’Leary is not the only man worried about crypto mining. Elon Musk was quick to rescind his decision of allowing bitcoin payments for Tesla goods due to his concerns regarding the extraction process.
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Source: https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/kevin-oleary-btc-mining-must-become-greener/
