Institutional investors concerned about Bitcoin’s environmental impact have found a new — albeit indirect — way to purchase “green” Bitcoin, according to celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary (aka “Mr. Wonderful” on ABC TV’s “Shark Tank”).
According to a transcript of an interview posted on his YouTube channel last Friday (via The Daily Hodl). Although some Bitcoin mining companies are buying carbon offsets to lower their carbon footprint in an attempt to address institutional investors’ ESG concerns, the lack of transparency in this strategy has led to institutional investors focussing on bitcoin mining companies that solely use clean energy:
“As the pressure came on for ESG [environmental, social and governance] mandates,”
“they started buying carbon credits. That’s not going to work because you’re going to start to see in this year,”
” I’m speculating, that these large institutions are going to start demanding carbon credit audits,”
” and you don’t want to be in a company stock that has the risk of a carbon audit because the truth”
“is it’s almost virtually impossible to show and understand the tracking error of a carbon credit”
” versus what you’re actually burning in carbon.…
“So all of the money is quietly moving right now to new mining companies, most of them private,”
” that are going to use hydro, wind, solar and nuclear power because if you use any of those options for mining,”
” there is no carbon audit. There is no offset necessary. You’re not burning carbon.“
He recently invested in a Bitcoin mining company based in Norway that uses exclusively green energy. That’s, he describes how investors like him are pressuring this company. Then, and others like it to keep rather than sell the bitcoins they mine:
“We have power at less than two cents a kilowatt-hour. Our stacks are remote.”
“We’re using the heat that’s generated there for hydroponics and fish rookeries,”
” and the stakeholders of that mine are many of the villagers that live there.”
“Here’s the key to this situation: the institutions that are backing it and some of them are”
“sovereign wealth funds ask me one thing: ‘Are the coins awarded going to stay on the balance sheet of this company?”
“Because we’ll be able to own the stock with the proxy that we know every coin was mined sustainably under an ESG mandate,”
” and that’s how we want to own our Bitcoin. If you’re telling us you’re going to sell off your coin, then we’re not investing.‘”
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