In August 2021, the USA held the majority of the world’s average monthly hashrate share for Bitcoin. As a natural extension of this, different American states are vying for a larger slice of the Bitcoin adoption pie – be it Bitcoin mining or Bitcoin on the balance sheet.
During an episode of the What Bitcoin Did podcast, Peter McCormack spoke to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez to learn more about Miami’s energy scene.
Me, “Mine,” and Myself
For his part, Suarez made it clear he was bullish on bringing Bitcoin miners to the Sunshine State. He said,
“…here in this country, we have an enormous opportunity to, you know, to get a larger market share of the Bitcoin mining, which I’m a huge proponent of. I think, what people don’t understand – it made a big issue of ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] which is a totally bogus issue.”
Suarez also pointed out how Bitcoin mining could solve the problem of electricity surplus and wastage across different parts of America. Coming to Miami’s electricity scene, he claimed that the city was “predominantly nuclear” in terms of energy sources.
Even so, it’s important to note that Florida itself consumes more than seven times the energy it produces. On the flip side, the Sunshine State is only second in electricity production, coming in behind Texas.
On a power trip
The phrase nuclear “renaissance” is quite popular when discussing cleaner ways of mining Bitcoin, and Suarez was partial to the word as well. However, he briefly admitted that nuclear waste was one issue to think about. He concluded,
“If you actually invest and you allow the nuclear power companies to stay state-of-the-art, it can be done extremely safely.”
Adding to his argument, Suarez proposed that the Bitcoin mining industry could bring jobs back to rural America. He explained,
“So you know, there’s this thought that Bitcoin is something that will just help, you know, sort of the elite or people in the urban areas, and this is delivering jobs – what I call a technological-industrial revolution – in the United States, which can create a lot of prosperity not just in the urban areas, but also in the rural areas.”
Not “very nice”
The Miami Mayor might be optimistic, but another country which allowed in Bitcoin miners is starting to feel the pinch. In November, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev reportedly admitted that the country was experiencing electricity shortages, and that a decision would have to be made regarding a nuclear power plant.
Going by local reports, Tokayev was far less pleased with the prospect of exploring nuclear power than his American counterpart.
