Elizabeth Warren, Congressional Dems are coming for crypto miners

The good times appear to be coming to an end.

According to a report last month, miners were selling off more than they were bringing in in order to cover their energy costs during the crash. With energy costs going up, mining companies were losing money.

The United States Congress is a new issue for the miners.

The Democrats are looking into requirements that would force mining companies to report their energy usage.

Senator Warren, along with five other Democratic members of Congress, wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy requesting that the two agencies work together to create rules requiring the reporting of energy use and emissions.

According to the New York Times, the move came after an investigation into seven of the United States' largestBitcoin mining companies. According to the inquiry, these miners are going to use as much as 1,045megawatt of power or enough electricity to power all the residences in a city the size of Houston. Houston is the most populous city in Texas with more than 2.3 million people.

According to the letter, the data gathered from just seven companies is disturbing and shows that the amount of carbon emissions is growing rapidly.

The letter states that those who live and work in the cities where they are based are paying more for energy. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates Texas' power grid, had to ask miners in the state to shut down their operations when energy demands spike due to the heat.

The large amount of energy used by the mining industry is due to the high-powered computer processing power needed. In exchange for being able to guess the random string of numbers needed to put a block on the chain, miners are rewarded with Bitcoins. The process will become more difficult as time goes on and the remuneration will be halved.

According to the report, one mining company plans to grow from its current 33,000 mining rigs to 199,000 in the next few years. The company is powered by a Montana based energy company that burns coal.

It seems that Senator Warren's letter is a step towards monitoring the industry and possibly passing regulations to curtail at least some of its more destructive behavior.