White House Pushes DAME Tax Proposal to Address Alleged Environmental Costs of Crypto Mining

On May 2, 2023, the Biden administration unveiled a weblog put up outlining the Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) tax, featured within the president’s complete 182-page finances proposal for the fiscal yr 2024. The DAME tax targets “making crypto miners pay for the costs they impose on others” relating to the environmental influence of crypto mining actions.

Crypto Miners Could Face Gradually Increasing Tax With Biden’s DAME Proposal

With the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors expressing alarm over the so-called local weather disaster, Biden’s administration argues that crypto asset mining’s vitality consumption brings about “negative spillovers on the environment, quality of life, and electricity grids where these firms locate across the country.”

To handle these environmental prices, the White House believes that the Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) tax will encourage firms to “start taking better account of the harms they impose on society.” The DAME tax intends to levy a progressively rising tax on crypto asset miners within the United States, in the end reaching 30%.

In the blog post, the White House refers to a current New York Times article that was accused of being a biased “one-side hit piece” that relied on dated knowledge whereas providing no counterarguments. Moreover, the Biden administration features a comparability between electrical energy used for mining and energy consumption regarding America’s residential lighting – a tactic considered as misleading in making readers consider that know-how is stealing vitality sources earmarked for human use.

However, this comparability neglects to think about advantages offered by applied direct response systems or current research findings from ESG analyst Daniel Batten. The Biden administration’s message fails to acknowledge renewable vitality sources leveraged by bitcoin miners or how mining can mitigate flare emissions.

Even so, the White House contends that miners who make the most of renewable vitality really “reduce the amount of clean power available for other uses,” resulting in elevated costs for customers. The time period “dirty” is employed quite a few occasions when referencing supposedly “dirtier sources of electricity.”

Lastly, the White House highlights that the DAME tax represents “only one example of the administration’s efforts to fight climate change.” It serves as merely the “start of having crypto miners pay their fair share of the costs imposed on local communities and the environment.”

What are your ideas on the DAME tax proposal? Do you consider it would successfully handle the alleged environmental prices of crypto mining, or do you assume it unfairly targets the mining business? Share your opinions within the feedback part under.