Why fossil fuel companies see green in Bitcoin mining projects

Of all the corporate climate hype floating around this spring, ExxonMobil’s secret project to cut down its pollution by mining Bitcoin has to rank up there as one of the strangest.

Exxon launched a pilot project in 2021 to mine Bitcoin in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, according to reporting by CNBC in March. The US’s biggest oil and gas company is also thinking about doing the same in Alaska and parts of Nigeria, Argentina, Guyana, and Germany, Bloomberg reported. And it’s not alone. Other oil companies, including ConocoPhillips in North Dakota, see the energy-hungry cryptocurrency as a way to offload some of their climate footprint and maybe make some cash in the process. The US has become the biggest hub for Bitcoin mining...

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