The Biden administration has again pushed for a 30% Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) tax on cryptocurrency miners, part of an effort to minimize the industry's alleged impact on climate change.
The proposed crypto mining tax was first announced on March 9 as part of President Joe Biden's fiscal year 2024 budget, and seeks to impose a phased excise tax of 30 percent on the electricity used by crypto miners. ise tax on the electricity consumption of digital asset miners could reduce mining operations and their associated environmental impacts and other harms,” Treasury wrote at the time. Bitcoin, It fell below $20,000 a day later.
However, a May 2 statement from the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) referred to the proposal again in an attempt to justify the need for a new tax. “Currently, cryptocurrency mining companies do not have to pay for the full costs they impose on others, such as local environmental pollution, rising energy prices, and the climate impact of increased greenhouse gas emissions,” the CEA wrote.
"The DAME tax encourages companies to start thinking better about the harm they do to society," it reads, adding: "While crypto assets are virtual, the energy consumption associated with their computationally intensive production is very real and incurs very re al costs.”
The blog also cites reports that cryptocurrency mining has had “negative spillover effects” on the environment, quality of life, and power grids, with pollution from electricity generation falling on low-income and communities of color while driving up consumer spending. elect ricity cost. It even shows that crypto mining using existing clean energy sources such as hydroelectric power can still have a negative impact on the environment as it pushes other electricity users towards “dirtier” sources of electricity.
The Twitter post by the Council of Economic Advisers drew widespread criticism from the community, with some calling it "misinformation" and "propaganda," while one Twitter user argued that the tax "will only drive bitcoin mining to Russia and Other countries."
