Governor of New Hampshire recommends the Department of Energy to review how Bitcoin mining can help stabilize the electricity grid, build more sustainable generation projects, and lower costs for consumers

https://www.governor.nh.gov/news-and-media/governors-commission-cryptocurrencies-and-digital-assets-releases-final-report-and

The report is surprisingly well researched recognizing how bitcoin mining operations could benefit energy infrastructure

The Commission recommends that the Governor and the Legislature direct the NH Department of Energy to conduct a public review of how bitcoin mining operations might be integrated into a statewide energy plan with positive impacts for the electricity system, including contributing to more stable electricity grid, more sustainable generation projects, and lower costs for consumers generally.

It highlights the difference between Bitcoin and crypto with respect to regulations

“I would define decentralization as a technical inability for any one party to perform major changes in the system. In a decentralized system, it’s impossible to change the critical parameters such as monetary policy,”

For Tětek, this means there isn’t really any decentralized cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin (BTC). ‘If your favorite cryptocurrency undergoes hard forks regularly and promotes the ability to overhaul its monetary policy, it’s not decentralized,’

But if one assumes for the moment that Bitcoin is the only truly decentralized Blockchain operating on the Internet, then what does that mean for the treatment of all of the other Crypto activities, including the claims that “Crypto is unique and therefore should not be subject to the traditional regulatory regimes that apply to traditional centralized financial activities”?

It may well be that Blockchain applications in their ideal, fully decentralized, peer-to-peer form represent fundamentally new systems that require an entirely new set of considerations with respect to AML/BSA/KYC rules, but an intermediate, practical question is whether centralized platforms that provide financial services with respect to crypto-assets are any different, from a policy perspective, than centralized firms that provide financial services with respect to more traditional financial assets, and now including Crypto-assets.

It highlights risks from unsecure altcoins frequently subject to hacks, exploits and fraud

While cryptocurrencies, digital assets, and blockchain technologies represent significant innovations with potential benefits, these technologies also pose significant potential for harm to consumers and offer significant opportunity for criminality. Indeed, as one presenter to the Commission has exhaustively chronicled, in the years since Satoshi Nakamura (sic.) published the original Bitcoin whitepaper, crypto has already been used to steal billions of dollars from the hundreds of millions of people who own cryptocurrencies worldwide.

New Hampshire can and should position itself to take advantage of the future potential of blockchain technologies while simultaneously protecting its citizens from the reality that many crypto projects to date have been nothing more than frauds.

It identifies lack of regulatory clarity at various levels as a potential obstacle

In clearest terms, the problem we are trying to solve is that current global, federal and state legal regimes are not clear with respect to how they apply to activities involving Digital Asset and Blockchain activities. This lack of clarity is an obstacle to the development and growth of Blockchain technologies, products and services, and therefore is harming the development of new economic activities that could benefit citizens through new products, services and jobs. Further, the lack of clarity creates obstacles to proper enforcement of laws intended to protect investors and consumers.

It says NH Banking Department will offer support and feedback to the industry

The Banking Department supports innovation and economic development in the crypto industry that is conducted in a safe and sound manner and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The Department encourages chartered entities, money transmitter licensees, and other potential applicants in the crypto industry to contact the Department to discuss their crypto-related activities. The Department will provide feedback as appropriate in response to such outreach.