EXCLUSIVE: Gryphon Digital CEO Talks Eco-Friendly Mining, Bitcoin’s Year-End Potential of $150,000

Bitcoin mining, the heartbeat of the vibrant community that drives interest and awareness about decentralized cryptocurrency, is experiencing a revolution that could upend the biased narrative of the industry fueling electricity that could be used for other sectors.

An industry caught in ‘unintended consequences’

A United Nations study published in the journal Earth’s Future in October called for “urgent action” from scientific, policy and advocacy groups on the “environmental costs of BTC mining.”

The researchers said that the global Bitcoin mining industry consumed 173.42 TWh of electricity from 2020 to 2021, a figure they say is greater than the electricity consumption of most countries.

While the researchers expressed concern about the environmental impacts of the industry, Professor Kaveh Madani, the director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNI-INWEH), who led the study, noted that innovations in technology often be associated. with unintended consequences.

“Our findings should not discourage the use of digital currencies. Instead, they should encourage us to invest in regulatory interventions and technological advances that improve the efficiency of the global financial system without harming the environment,” he noted.

A potential ‘dynamic duo’

Despite lingering concerns about the industry’s implications on the environment, some researchers have also found that Bitcoin mining can actually be optimized “to improve the deployment of renewable energy sources.”

A February study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal found that green hydrogen technologies, particularly solar and wind power, when synergized with Bitcoin mining operations, could address concurrent challenges surrounding climate change and crypto growth.

The researchers recommended that profits from the mining industry be invested in building green hydrogen infrastructure to further drive the transition of renewable energy in the sector.

How important is the transition from renewable energy to the industry?

Rob Chang, the CEO and founder of Gryphon Digital Mining, a leader in sustainable, carbon-neutral $BTC mining, shared his insights on renewable mining operations exclusively with International Business Times.

“Renewable energy operations are very important to the Bitcoin mining industry. The use of renewable energy not only combats the biased narrative that Bitcoin mining uses electricity at the expense of more ‘worthy’ areas, but the use of renewable energy is a more environmentally responsible way to run any business,” he said.

On new studies that suggest the industry can help advance the world’s transition efforts to renewable energy, Chang couldn’t agree more. He noted that there are global efforts within the industry to identify alternative energy sources for miners, thus helping to drive the creation of more renewable power that helps countries that want to make the big change.

Challenges ahead for miners looking to take that step

Chang, who was the former CFO of Riot Blockchain, acknowledged that other mining companies that have not yet switched face challenges along the way, as such miners “have contracts or fixed assets that are already using non-renewable energy mixes. “

He pointed out that switching power sources is not easy as most areas have only one power source. Relocation is certainly an “expensive and time-consuming endeavor that most miners will not undertake,” he said. On the other hand, he revealed that miners new to the business have shown a “preference” for renewable operations.

How Gryphon is leading the way to more responsible mining

Nasdaq-listed Gryphon was recently independently certified to be 100% renewable. To be precise, “Gryphon operates in the purest possible form of environmental responsibility as we use 100% hydropower and are independently certified to be 0 carbon for scope 1 and scope 2 emissions,” Chang explained.

It is possible to be both profitable and environmentally responsible, he said. Gryphon also has carbon offset credits that can be used to offset Scope 3 emissions, and it is one of the world’s most efficiently run mining companies, ranking #1 in Bitcoin efficiency in 17 of the past 33 months.

On $BTC prices and year-end goals

Bitcoin has been in the red most days of the past week, but it has since recovered slightly and is closer to $60,000. Chang believes that the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value “will be at least $150,000 by the end of the year be.”

Historically, Bitcoin prices have doubled within six months of a halving. The digital currency went through its fourth halving in April. The sign was around the $60,000-$70,000 range moving into the halving, “so a doubling would be around $120,000-$140,000,” he projected.

The positive impact of spot $BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) shouldn’t be ignored either, Chang said, so it’s safe to say that the market is still in the early stages of another bull run. “If we were to plot the Bitcoin price charts with similar time periods in the last few cycles, the similarities are remarkably close,” he said.