Riot Platforms, Inc. ($RIOT) an industry leader in Bitcoin (“BTC”) mining and data center hosting, issues a statement in response to The New York Times’ (“NYT”) April 9, 2023 article “The Real-World Cost of the Digital Race for Bitcoin” (the “Article”).
Amid yet another banking crisis, Bitcoin offers consumers and businesses much-needed optionality for storing value, and the ability to take custody of their own assets. Bitcoin mining operations are also providing jobs, tax revenues, and many other benefits to rural communities, including grid stability and incentives for alternative energy production.
That is why we were especially disappointed to read a false and distorted view of our Company and our industry in the Article published by The NYT. Worse still, The NYT chose to publish the Article with information its authors knew to be false and misleading, ignoring the factual information that we provided to them.
To be clear, our Bitcoin mining operations do not generate any greenhouse gas emissions, similar to any other data center for Facebook, Amazon or Google – yet we have been singled out. Our data center uses electricity from the Texas grid, which is the cleanest and most renewable energy-sourced grid in the United States.
We also proudly participate in various programs that help to stabilize the electric grid and actually reduce power prices, despite what critics incorrectly assume. Unlike other industries, we can shut down at a moment’s notice, making power available to other users and critical infrastructure during extreme weather events, while offsetting losses from curtailing our operations.
We are especially proud to be the largest employer in Milam County, Texas, and that our dynamic and talented workforce is spurring economic activity that is strengthening the local economy.
This reporting appears to be driven by fringe political interests, but we will not be deterred from our core mission of helping to build a global, universally accessible network for Bitcoin and supportive, resilient communities where our operations are located.
In that spirit, we are compelled to publish, our full responses to the NYT questions we received in the weeks prior to publication. As anyone can see, accurate information was blatantly ignored because it did not fit the narrative the NYT was trying to spin.
1. NYT Distortion: The NYT compares electricity usage of Bitcoin mining data centers to peoples’ homes. That is an arbitrary, inflammatory, and political choice. It is very telling that they compare Bitcoin miners to “another New York City’s worth of residents.” The NYT appears unaware that this statement admits condescension towards Americans who choose to inhabit rural areas in the middle of the country. The obvious implication by the NYT is that New York City residents should be allowed to consume electricity; data centers in rural America should not.
2. NYT Distortion: They state that Bitcoin mining operations “can create costs” including “higher electricity bills and enormous carbon pollution.”
3. NYT Distortion: In “Texas … Bitcoin companies are paid by the grid operator for promising to quickly power down if necessary to prevent blackouts. In practice, they rarely are asked to shut down and instead earn additional money while doing exactly what they would have been doing anyway: seeking Bitcoin.” And they go on to claim that operators made tens of millions of dollars.
4. NYT Distortion: “Bitcoin mines bring significantly fewer jobs, often employing only a few dozen people once construction is complete, and spur less local economic development. Their financial benefit flows almost exclusively to their owners and operators.”
5. NYT Distortion: “Many Bitcoin businesses promote their ability to operate in rural areas where renewable energy is abundant. But those claims have hit a hard reality: A vast majority of that renewable energy would be used even in the absence of the mines, so fossil fuel plants almost always need to produce additional electricity as a result of their operations.” They go on to state that Riot operates on 96% fossil fuel, using a “marginal emissions” calculation.
6. NYT Distortion: “If Riot had been fully operating [on June 23, 2022], it would have incurred an estimated $5.5 million in fees — costs that are largely made up by other Texans. Over the course of the year, this saved Riot more than $27 million in potential fees.”
No comments:
Post a Comment