I draw the attention of the honourable Union Ministers Mr Piyush Goyal and Mr R .K Singh, responsible for the energy sector in the country on the need to take steps to reduce the adverse impact Crypto Currencies are having on the energy sector on a global scale.
It is a pet idea of Mr Modi’s Government that we need to encourage transport vehicles which would use electricity and renewable energy instead of the conventional Coal and Thermal energy. This is being countered by the proliferation of Bitcoins and Crypto Currencies and needs to be checked.
I would like both the Ministers responsible for Energy related activities, to reflect for some time the havoc that the Crypto Currency system is creating in the whole world in terms of the energy consumption and whether the World can afford it.
We often discuss the global warming and Carbon footprint and design policies to correct the environmental imbalance. But have we ever paused to consider the damage we are inflicting on the global energy environment by not taking action on Crypto Currencies?
Afterall, Crypto currencies like Bitcoin have no economic value to the society other than being the Currency of the Criminals, created by Criminals posing as technologists, for the benefit of the Criminals. The society has no reason to pay a price to make the life of Criminals comfortable and profitable. But that is what the policy makers are doing now.
It is unfortunate that instead of India under Modi taking a lead in preventing the damage to the energy environment being created by Bitcoins and its 1370 cousins (as of 31st December 2017) in the energy sector, we are debating whether India should legalize Bitcoins.
According to one estimate, (Refer digieconomist.bet)the current estimate of energy
consumption by the Bitcoin network isaround 38.21 Twh per year and it has grown from around 10 Twh to this level in the last one year.
This appears to be only refering to the Bitcoin network and if we add the other Crypto currencies, it would be more than double this level.
If this is compared with the total energy consumption in different countries, it appears that Bitcoin network consumes nearly 10% to 15% of the consumption of most advanced countries.
Compared to India whose estimated energy consumption is estimated to be about 1238 TWh, Bitcoin industry consumes around 3% of our consumption and the entire Crypto currency industry should be consuming around 6% of the electricity consumption of the 1.2 billion population. The consumption of Electricity by the Bitcoin industry is said to be higher than that of the whole of Denmark or Nigeria.
If this is not checked, the energy managers of the world will be considered as fools. There is no justification for wasting the precious energy resource of the globe to promote a Currency network for the criminals .
Since China is one of the biggest Bitcoin mining country and it uses Coal based power, it is also said that the Bitcoin industry contributes adversely to the Carbon footprint in the globe as well.
Bitcoin’s villany in being a “Perfect Black Money” and “Currency for funding Crimes and Terror” is well known. To this we need to add the adverse impact that the Crypto currency industry leaves on the Power consumption for unproductive and negative purposes and the Carbon foot print.
All this indicates that if the Government of India does not immediately move to ban Bitcoin and discourage use of all Crypto Currencies in India, it will be doing a disservice to the global community.
Many people are unable to understand the difference between Crypto Currencies and the Digital Currencies which represent the money in the Bank withdrawable by electronic means. Such people try to create a misconception that opposition to Crypto currency is opposition to Mr Modi’s Digital India Concept. I am sure that you understand the difference and you should educate other members in the Government about why Crypto Currencies is bad for India and we need to ban it forthwith.
Government is also often mislead with the fact that some countries like Japan have recognized Bitcoins and we should also follow. This is not a valid argument since the needs of different countries are different. We know that there are countries which have legalized sale of narcotics and illegal arms. It may be good for them. But we cannot follow them.
We donot know what is the stock of Crypto currencies held by Japan and China. It could be huge and they would like it to be used by converting it into dollars. USA also has a large stock in Government control. China has been very clever and has banned Bitcoin exchanges and prevented the Citizens to trade in Bitcoins but the Government itself is said to be continuing the mining data centers which run like an industry. It is also possible that China must have now shifted its attention on mining other Crypto currencies such as Ripple or Ethereum since it is more profitable than mining Bitcoins and hence it is playing a double game of banning the exchanges without stopping the mining activities.Those who already have a significant share of Bitcoins would definitely want to legalize Bitcoins not only for their countries internal use but also to use it in international payments.
We must resist their attempts since it would be detrimental to our interest.
I therefore suggest that India should take a global leadership position to oppose Bitcoins and Private Crypto Currencies (Not the Government backed Crypto Currencies which may be introduced by Russis or other countries in the coming days), starting with an immediate ban on Bitcoins in India.
In India I am sure that those who have already built up a stock of Bitcoins which unfortunately includes persons like Mr Amitabh Bachchan could be preventing the Government from taking a decision to ban Bitcoins. We need to take a tough stand on this and cannot allow those who converted white money to black by investing in Bitcoins to profit from their activities even if it was done innocently.
We need to show the same resolve that we showed during the demonetization of high denomination notes and now demonetize Crypto currencies.
I request Mr Piyush Goyal and R.K. Singh to move the issue with the Finance Minister as the delay in the decision is hurting the clean image of Mr Modi’s Government.
Naavi
