Welcome, and thank you for being part of the MyZucoins community! Let’s get into an interesting piece of crypto, finance, or tech news to stay ahead.
Ban On Crypto Mining Backed By Canadian Court In British Columbia Region
The British Columbia Supreme Court has supported the decision by B.C. Hydro, the provincial power utility, to impose an 18-month moratorium on cryptocurrency mining projects within the province.
This decision was contested by Conifex Timber, a company traditionally involved in forestry that had expanded its operations into cryptocurrency mining.
Conifex had plans to initiate a mining project in collaboration with the Tsay Keh Dene Nation, an indigenous group.
Justice Michael Tammen, presiding over the case, concluded that the moratorium, initially established in December 2022, was reasonable, non-discriminatory, and aligned with the directives of the province’s Utilities Commission Act.
The judge’s rationale was that the ban was based on a cost-of-service framework, acknowledging the significant and unique energy demands of cryptocurrency mining endeavors.
This approach was aimed at safeguarding the affordability of energy for the wider community.
Justice Tammen’s ruling emphasized the distinctive electricity consumption patterns of cryptocurrency mining centers, noting that the energy required for all the cryptocurrency operations’ interconnection requests in 2023 far exceeded B.C. Hydro’s energy projections.
Conifex, on its part, expressed its disappointment with the continuation of the ban, suggesting that this decision overlooks potential benefits such as enhanced energy affordability, technological advancement, improved reliability and resilience of the power distribution network in British Columbia, and broader economic growth.
This case in British Columbia reflects a growing concern over the environmental and resource impacts of cryptocurrency mining, similar to actions taken by other regions like New York State, which enacted a two-year moratorium on crypto mining in November 2022.
Despite these regulatory challenges, there are zero-carbon footprint mining projects in British Columbia that operate off-grid, such as Ocean Falls Technology, leveraging unused power from a hydroelectric plant in a deserted mining town, showcasing the potential for sustainable practices in the industry. Read more here.
Bitcoin mining concerns and Zucoins’ eco-friendly approach.
How Does Zucoin’s Splitchain Network Solve The Energy Consumption Problem?
The recent ruling by a British Columbia supreme court, backing the province’s moratorium on cryptocurrency mining, highlights significant challenges facing the crypto industry: energy consumption and regulatory acceptance.
This decision, notably contested by Conifex Timber, underscores the tension between the growing crypto sector and the traditional energy infrastructure, emphasizing the need for sustainable and innovative solutions.
Zucoin’s Splitchain network offers an alternative system to these challenges.
SplitChain’s architecture doesn’t follow traditional blockchain technologies.
By eliminating the need for energy-intensive mining processes, SplitChain’s unique approach to transaction verification and ledger maintenance sidesteps the conventional Proof of Work (PoW) model, which is notorious for its substantial electricity demands.
It also aims to avoid the centralization pitfalls with the common alternative to Proof of Work, Proof of Stake (PoS).
SplitChain technology, by design, isolates each transaction instead of grouping them into blocks.
This not only enhances transaction efficiency by making them able to be processed in parallel, but also significantly reduces the energy required for processing.
This is a stark contrast to the characteristics of traditional cryptocurrency mining centers, which, as Justice Michael Tammen noted, have “unique electricity consumption characteristics” that could “grossly exceed” energy projections, as was the case with BC Hydro’s concerns.
Another concern raised by Conifex is that crypto is supposed to lower the barriers to participation.
Give more access and participation to more people.
Hence the common term, Web3.
If it doesn’t, it’ll eventually centralize.
Which then leads to the same problems as current online systems—censorship and control.
Reducing operational costs means more kinds of users, from weekend enthusiasts to large businesses, can get involved and build on top of Zucoin’s crypto platform.
This should encourage a more diverse and resilient ecosystem.
As we recently covered this week, this issue is growing and gaining the wrong kind of attention.
Remember, blockchains like Bitcoin are designed to become more competitive the more they get used.
This means the barriers to entry increase the more participants there are.
It’s not scalable, by design.
More centralization is the result, as fewer groups of miners can compete with the rising requirements.
Note: A common (and misunderstood) solution is mining pools, but this doesn’t solve the issue.
These effects go against the principles of the economies of scale, where things should get cheaper and more available when more effort is put in.
Recall that in 2022, the EU held a vote to ban crypto mining within its borders.
The vote didn’t pass, but there was a lot of surprise that the votes for a European mining ban were so high at all.
“34 members voted against the provision of the draft that would ban proof-of-work cryptocurrency networks, while 24 voted in favor.”
As many nations attempt to shift towards greener energy sources, high-consumption industries like crypto miners will always flare up attention during times of low energy availability.
Ideally, the solution shouldn’t be about making existing processes more efficient, but how to reach the end-goal effects of cryptocurrency systems using different mechanisms.
Cryptocurrency systems are essentially sophisticated truth-finding systems.
They aim to solve the following, upon which everything else is built:
Did a transaction—of any kind, happen the way we expected and can we undeniably prove it, without going through a single third-party company that is holding all of the data?
It sounds deceptively simple, but it’s one of a handful of ultra-hard computer science problems to crack.
From this basic concept a few years ago, Zucoin tackled the problem by taking a step back and, piece by piece, came up with a completely unique crypto solution.
That solution is Splitchain.
And the team can’t wait to unleash it fully.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” —Albert Einstein
If you liked this newsletter, please forward it to someone who might like it too.
You can also donate here or even buy some Zucoins. Every little bit helps us improve.
What did you think of this newsletter? Reply to send us feedback on what you liked or want to see featured more. There’s more coming, so stay tuned.
—
All the best,
—Rob
MyZucoins
Disclaimer: Of course, this is not advice, financial or otherwise. It’s also important to consider the risks and challenges associated with any potential benefits.