Funny, a lot of bitcoiners will say they hate government regulation.

Well, without environmental regulation in the U.S., these landfill gas bitcoin mining projects would probably not exist, as we’re hearing on this spaces (landfills are being told they need to reduce methane emissions by gov’t regulators). In other countries where there aren’t these same regulations, it’s much lower on their list of priorities!

Just making an observation don’t shoot the messenger!

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Without regulations I would have a small nuclear reactor in my front yard.

Most of the environmental movements big wins in the USA were civil actions via the Tort of Nuisance. Landfill gas mining is a good way to not get sued again.

Regulation and regulatory agencies are jobs programs, and opportunities to keep new entrants out of profitable markets via regulatory capture.

In this specific case, the regulations seem to be pushing things in the right direction, but miners would’ve gravitated towards free or negative cost energy anyway. In general, regulations create inefficiencies.

Some of the environmental regulation is actually being used for good in this case with bitcoin!

Define inefficiences?

In this case, an inability to produce the optimal economic result.

I see. The issue is a context-specific answer from a generalized statement.

"Optimal" is also completely subjective. Is it optimal for a company to dump pollution in a river? For their P&L, yes. For a broader set of stakeholders / context space, perhaps not.

This is a bad argument. You're trying to say that regulation is good because in this one edge case it creates a business opportunity for some Bitcoin miners, and people are too happy about it?

It's possible that bitcoiners can be enthusiastic about something incentived by regulation because it helps to offset the mountain of other regulatory threats it faces. Also possible that people just like the idea of using waste in an innovative way.

It's not a gotcha about being hypocritical about regulation.