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A Norwegian court has determined that crypto mining is not "industry", and therefore can be excluded in local zoning plans for industry.

Municipalities in Norway want to exclude them because of the huge energy demands and very few jobs created.

This is a good decision. These data centres are a massive waste of energy and resources.

#Crypto #Miming #Energy #Law #Norway

rett24.no/articles/staten-vant…


Staten vant ankesak om reguleringsplan – kryptoutvinning er ikke «industri»

– Dette får åpenbart store konsekvenser langt ut over denne saken, sier kryptoutbyggernes prosessfullmektig, etter at staten onsdag fikk fullt medhold i at kommunen kan nekte etableringen av et kraftkrevende datasenter.
Kjetil Kolsrud (Rett24)
#energy #crypto #law #Norway #miming

A Monday night memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, citing Trump’s crypto executive orders, has dismantled the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and directed the agency’s Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to “cease cryptocurrency enforcement”.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USPolitics

A Monday night memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, citing Trump’s crypto executive orders, has dismantled the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and directed the agency’s Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to “cease cryptocurrency enforcement”.1 The memo also directs prosecutors to “not charge regulatory violations in cases involving digital assets including but not limited to unlicensed money transmitting..., violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, unregistered securities offering violations, unregistered broker-dealer violations, and other violations of registration requirements under the Commodity Exchange Act” unless they have specific knowledge that the defendant knowingly and willfully violated a specific requirement — erecting a major barrier to prosecuting such cases. The National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, established in October 2021 and merged with the computer crimes section in July 2023, helped investigate and prosecute cases including the historic Binance case [I44] — which was based on charges that the DOJ is now explicitly discouraged from prosecuting. NCET was also heavily involved in prosecuting Bitzlato for its role in laundering ransomware proceeds and illicit assets tied to the Russian Hydra darkweb marketplace [I46], and in prosecuting Avi Eisenberg, who I will return to in a moment.23
#crypto #cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics

As we watch Trump dismantling cryptocurrency industry regulations and enforcement, it’s worth revisiting the extent to which he and his family personally profit from their cryptocurrency business interests, which they have been rapidly expanding.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics

Trump business interests As we watch Trump dismantling cryptocurrency industry regulations and enforcement, it’s worth revisiting the extent to which he and his family personally profit from their cryptocurrency business interests, which they have been rapidly expanding. Eric Trump has recently announced American Bitcoin, a company he has co-founded with the CEO of bitcoin mining firm Hut8. American Bitcoin will essentially subsume Hut8’s entire bitcoin mining business under suspiciously friendly terms for the Trumps. As VanEck’s Matthew Sigel noted, “I don’t fully understand the rationale of selling 61,000 miners in exchange for an 80% stake in a subsidiary that they previously owned 100% of. No cash changes hands.”13 Hut8 seems to have decided that favor with the Trump family is worth more than cash. I’ve gotten some flak in the past for describing World Liberty Financial as the Trumps’ crypto platform, as some liked to reiterate the platform’s claims that they had an arms-length relationship with the Trumps (despite the fact that 75% of protocol revenues go to Trump, and the platform prominently listed the three Trump sons as “ambassadors” [I68]). Now that the election is over, all pretense has been dropped, and the Trump family has taken majority control of the company. The company has raised $550 million in token sales, putting Trump’s cut at almost $400 million. The project still has yet to launch anything, but as I noted last issue, their plans now include lau
Then there’s Trump Media, the firm behind the Truth Social platform, which has recently filed documents disclosing plans to explore something called Truth.Fi, which will include a crypto component [I80]. Trump’s stake in Trump Media is estimated at around $2 billion, and the company recently submitted filings that would allow the trust holding his shares in the company (controlled by Donald Trump Jr.) to sell them.14 Then there are the memecoins [I75]. Trump has already extracted around $350 million from crypto buyers via his $TRUMP token.15 On April 18, he’ll be allowed to sell off another 40 million of the tokens in the first token unlock of several scheduled over a three-year period. There’s also his wife’s $MELANIA token, which has been comparatively less lucrative, although the team responsible for it (also responsible for the disastrous $LIBRA token) has been quietly dumping tokens for at least $30 million in recent days.16 Of course we can’t forget the NFTs (multiple projects apiece launched by both Donald and Melania Trump), the bitcoin sneakers, and the other associated crypto-related grifts. And then there’s the political benefit via crypto industry donations — over $10 million contributed directly to supporting Trump, and over $200 million and counting raised to influence Congressional races.
This is the environment we’re living in as we watch Trump call off the SEC from investigating or enforcing cryptocurrency-related cases targeting his crypto benefactors and companies much like the ones he’s running. As Trump establishes a “strategic bitcoin reserve” while directly admitted its purpose is to “elevate this critical industry”. As the SEC and CFTC invites crypto executives to write their own rules. As the SEC declares that memecoins like $TRUMP and $MELANIA don’t fall under their authority, and neither do stablecoins like the one Trump’s World Liberty Financial is planning to launch.17 As the CFTC withdraws guidelines that had established oversight requirements on their portions of the crypto industry.18 As banking regulators nix guidance supervising crypto-related activities. And as the Department of Justice has been unilaterally called off anything crypto-related.
#crypto #cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics

Newsletter: Trump continues to dismantle crypto enforcement while expanding his personal crypto empire.

Most recently, Trump has called the DOJ off cryptocurrency enforcement and dismantled the agency's crypto enforcement team.

citationneeded.news/issue-81/

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics


Issue 81 – Crypto crime is legal

Molly White (Citation Needed)
#crypto #cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics

The environmental burden of the United States’ #bitcoin #mining #boom


Source: nature.com/articles/s41467-025…

From mid-2022 to mid-2023, the 34 mines consumed 32.3 terawatt-hours of #electricity — 33% more than Los Angeles—85% of which came from #fossil #fuels.


#btc #usa #earth #environment #climate #finance #politics #Problem #money #nature #emissions #crypto #hype #blockchain


The environmental burden of the United States’ bitcoin mining boom - Nature Communications

The paper maps air pollution from power plants supplying electricity to US Bitcoin mines. It finds that 1.9 million people in 2022-2023 breathed toxic amounts of Bitcoin mine attributable pollution, particularly around New York City and Houston.
Nature
#money #Environment #nature #bitcoin #problem #climate #crypto #politics #earth #USA #finance #blockchain #electricity #emissions #fossil #btc #mining #boom #fuels #hype

#Trump Family Pushes Further Into #Crypto, Starting Another Venture

Eric Trump & Donald Trump Jr. are investing in a #Bitcoin-mining company called American Bitcoin, created by the merger of two firms.

#law #USpol #scam #fraud #EmolumentsClause
nytimes.com/2025/03/31/busines…


Trump Family Starts Bitcoin Mining Venture in Further Push Into Crypto

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are investing in a Bitcoin-mining company called American Bitcoin, created by the merger of two firms.
David Yaffe-Bellany (The New York Times)
#bitcoin #crypto #Trump #law #scam #fraud #uspol #EmolumentsClause

Crypto coming with the innovation: there's a new app where you can earn crowd sourced crypto by reporting people to #ICE so they can be #deported.

They put the stasi on the blockchain, basically.
x.com/LauraLoomer/status/19060…

#fascism #uspol #Immigration #deportation #DHS #crypto #LauraLoomer #immigrants

@LauraLoomer There’s a new app where citizens can reportillegal aliens and foreigners engaged in criminal activity AND get paid in crypto for doing so! On @LoomerUnleashed, | spoke with independent journalist @JacobEngels about how the ICE Raid app iceraid.us uses geotagged submissions, Al verification & tip-sharing to assist local & federal law enforcement in catching illegal aliens who need to be DEPORTED. This is what crowd-sourced patriotism looks like. Report and deport!
#crypto #ice #immigration #fascism #uspol #immigrants #deportation #dhs #deported #lauraloomer

Congress has been debating stablecoin bills, and one has advanced to the full Senate thanks to five Democrats who joined all Republicans to vote for it — despite concerns about the power it grants to giant companies and the threat of introducing 2008-esque financial contagion risk.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

Congress has been continuing to consider stablecoin legislation. In the House, lawmakers tussled over the Republican-led STABLE Act, with Maxine Waters (D-CA) condemning it in its current iteration because she believes it “tears down the wall that was used to separate banking from commerce” — potentially opening the doors to serious financial contagion. She urged other Representatives to reintroduce components of her own proposed legislation, introduced in the last Congress, that would establish more significant oversight and penalties for violations.2728 In the Senate, lawmakers argued over a bipartisan GENIUS Act, with Democrats arguing it doesn’t go far enough to protect consumers or national security. “Anyone who thinks the US taxpayer won’t be called on directly or indirectly to bail out these guys is kidding themselves,” argued Senator Warren (D-MA), also expressing concerns about financial contagion that she likened to the 2008 financial crisis. Several proposals to amend the bill failed along party lines, and the Senate Banking Committee ultimately voted to send the bill to the full Senate.29 Five Democrats voted with the Republicans to advance the bill, including Ruben Gallego from Arizona, who received $10 million in campaign backing from the crypto industry. The other four were Senators Rochester (DE), Alsobrooks (MD), Kim (NJ), and Warner (VA).30
In both the House and the Senate, Democrats expressed concerns that big tech giants, including Elon Musk and Twitter, would further entrench their monopoly positions and abuse consumers by beginning to issue stablecoins. Republicans mostly dismissed any arguments against the bills as fearmongering, with Cynthia Lummis (WY) downplaying concerns about crypto’s role in the drug trade by saying, “I want to assure everybody that Machiavelli is not going to get raised from the dead to issue stablecoins so we can destroy our planet with drugs.”29
#crypto #cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics

Sadly, for now we remain in a very much not billionaire-proof world, so I will now update you on how that’s all been going.

Substantially all remaining enforcement cases from the SEC against cryptocurrency companies (and political megadonors) have been dropped, including the lingering cases against Ripple and Kraken I mentioned last issue.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

I mentioned in the last issue that the few SEC cases against the crypto firms-turned-political-megadonors that hadn’t yet been dropped would likely be dropped shortly. As predicted, the CEO of Ripple has just announced that the SEC will drop the remainder of its long-running case against the company, originally filed in 2020.20 While Ripple’s CEO described this as “a resounding victory for Ripple”, he did not draw attention to the fact that the SEC had already won the portion of the case alleging that the company had violated securities laws with its institutional token sales, which landed the company with a $125 million fine in 2023 — though this was well below the $2 billion fine sought by the enforcement agency. The SEC was in the process of appealing a decision that the company’s sales to retail exchanges did not violate securities laws, but this appeal is what will apparently be dropped shortly. Ripple and its executives contributed $48 million to crypto-focused super PACs, $12.6 million to Harris, $5 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and several million more to various other political committees. They’ve also pledged another $25 million to the crypto super PACs for the midterms.
Similarly, Kraken has stated that the SEC has agreed in principle to dismiss its lawsuit against the exchange. As with the case against Coinbase, the SEC will ask for the case to be dismissed with prejudice. Kraken was particularly explicit that this outcome had nothing to do with the facts at issue in the case, writing: “We appreciate the new leadership both at the White House and the Commission that led to this change.”21 Kraken and its executives contributed $1 million each to Trump, Trump’s inauguration fund, and crypto-focused super PACs. Cumberland DRW, the crypto trading portion of DRW, has also announced that the SEC case against them will be dropped.22 The agency had alleged that the firm had sold more than $2 billion in unregistered crypto securities, naming popular crypto assets including Solana and Polygon among them. DRW CEO Don Wilson contributed $100,000 to a crypto-focused super PAC. Finally, NFT company Yuga Labs — best known as the creators of Bored Apes — have said that the SEC has closed an ongoing investigation into the company.23
#crypto #cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics

My conversation with @brianmerchant about “Speaking Truth to Crypto Power” at SXSW was one of the few crypto-related events. Crypto prices may be back up, but crypto excitement has not followed.

youtube.com/watch?v=WzqoukQoAo…

#crypto #cryptocurrency

- YouTube

Bekijk je favoriete video's, luister naar de muziek die je leuk vindt, upload originele content en deel alles met vrienden, familie en anderen op YouTube.
www.youtube.com
#crypto #cryptocurrency @Brian Merchant

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