Unexpected player surges to forefront of rapidly expanding energy market: 'One step ahead'

As renewable energy markets explode across the globe, entrepreneurs from a wide variety of industries are reaching out to partner with countries and companies in the business.

One country where renewable activity has been particularly fervent of late is Brazil, which actually has a surplus of clean power at the moment (to the point where it has cost energy companies almost $1 billion in the last two years), according to Reuters. As a result, Brazilian companies have been negotiating with cryptocurrency mining companies to use that surplus renewable power for their operations without putting a strain on the country's energy grid.

At the moment, at least six separate negotiations for small and medium-sized crypto-based businesses are taking place, a notable statistic for a country like Brazil, where crypto mining barely has a presence.

"We aim to expand the company and enter new markets," said Sergio Brasil, CEO of Brazilian renewable giant Renova, according to Reuters. "We realized that by providing all the infrastructure (for crypto mining), we were one step ahead of our competitors."

The viability of cryptocurrency remains a contentious topic, with both sides of the debate firm in their convictions. From an environmental perspective, the two sides of the coin are almost intertwined. On one hand, some energy companies are starting to invest in crypto in an effort to provide power in an environmentally conscious manner. Bitcoin is also now receiving more than half of its energy from sustainable sources.

That being said, there are mountains of evidence linking crypto operations to significant environmental harm (and even human health problems).

This is not to say that crypto is inherently good or evil — at this moment, it's still a relatively emerging market and technology, and its full capabilities are likely still undiscovered to some degree.

Though its success as a stable coin is far from guaranteed, cryptocurrency is nevertheless likely here to stay. As such, it makes sense that companies across all industries, from finance to the environment, are trying to figure out how or if they can best utilize it.

"There's tons of potential," John Blount, one of the founders of Enegix, a crypto miner based in Kazakhstan, told Reuters. "We will try somehow to [build] elaborate mobile data centers."

What do you think the future of cryptocurrency is?

It is the future of currency 😎