On behalf of the Center for American Progress, Todd Phillips and Alex Fredman wrote to comment on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) request for information titled “Request for Information on the Energy and Climate Implications of Digital Assets” (RFI). The president, in an executive order on ensuring responsible development of digital assets, tasked the OSTP with developing a report that discusses, among other things, “the potential for these technologies to impede or advance efforts to tackle climate change at home and abroad … and the impacts these technologies have on the environment.” Accordingly, this letter discusses the impacts that the use of blockchain technology in the securities and commodities markets may have on the environment; the means by which financial market regulators may incentivize the development of more energy-efficient blockchains; and how claims that blockchain technology can play a beneficial role in carbon offset markets are premature and possibly wrong.
Read the comment letter here.