While several climate change evangelists and Bitcoin critics are seriously bashing Bitcoin for being an energy guzzler, the Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment has openly praised the leading cryptocurrency and even admitted that he is a “hodler.”
Sveinung Rotevatn disclosed that he owns some Bitcoin. He opined that the flagship digital asset is a “well-suited store of value.” Rotevatn is an official in one of the most renewable energy-focused governments. It comes as a surprise that he endorses Bitcoin. The minister spoke about Bitcoin’s relationship with the environmental challenges. Describing Bitcoin as exciting Rotevatn said:
What might make Bitcoin so exciting is that it has some of the same properties. You can’t suddenly discover a ton of Bitcoin somewhere, giving one country huge reserves. It’s spread evenly, it grows slowly, but steadily, and has a finite supply… Therefore, it’s theoretically well-suited as a store of value.The minister thinks that a significant portion of the energy consumed by Bitcoin comes from renewable sources, an assertion that is open to debate. He goes further to claim that gold mining and the banking industry consume more power than Bitcoin mining.
Although Norway is not as popular as the United States in terms of crypto investments, it has had its fair share of adoptions. As reported by BTC PEERS last month, the Norwegian billionaire Øystein Stray Spetalen made a U-turn to buy some Bitcoin after calling the digital asset “nonsense” a few weeks earlier.
