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I would agree that not performing useless computations is better than performing useless computations. If monetary incentives are all we need, then just use tax incentives to do so. That seems much easier than shipping mining rigs and the corresponding cooling to locations apparently too far from civilization to produce energy for anything useful.

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A tax would result in a cost for the business.

Bitcoin mining results in a profit.

Why would you pick the first one?

Transporting miners is not the hard part, you just keep them in containers. What is hard is building the necessary stuff to actually flare the gas properly.

A tax incentive, as in an offset on their costs.

Sure, so we just move the cost to someone else effectively? Seems unfair and unnecessary when they can just mine bitcoin instead.

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