US Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and John Fetterman have introduced the Clean Cloud Act of 2025. The bill aims to reduce carbon emissions from energy-intensive crypto-mining operations and artificial intelligence data centers.
This comes at a time when Bitcoin miners are increasingly moving towards renewable energy sources to power their operations.
Clean Cloud Act Links Rising Energy Demand to Bitcoin Mining
According to the bill, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would have the authority to set annual carbon performance standards for facilities with over 100 kilowatts of installed IT power.
These standards would tighten each year, with emissions limits declining by 11% annually.
Companies that exceed the cap will pay a starting fee of $20 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. This fee will rise yearly, adjusting for inflation and an additional $10 per ton. The bill also enforces strict accounting methods to include indirect emissions from the grid.
The lawmakers argue that crypto miners and AI centers are driving up power demand at an unsustainable pace. According to them, the current clean energy sources cannot keep up with the rapid growth of the demand for Bitcoin mining.
They noted that data centers alone use 4% of all electricity in the US and could hit 12% by 2028. They also pointed out that utilities have even restarted old coal plants to meet rising demand, worsening the country’s carbon footprint.
Considering this, Senator Whitehouse noted that this pressure is driving up electricity costs for consumers. He said the bill would push tech firms toward clean energy investments and help ensure the US power grid can reach net-zero emissions within the next decade.
“The good news is that we don’t have to choose between leading the world on AI and leading the world on climate safety: big technology and AI companies have all the money in the world to pay for developing new sources of clean energy, rather than overloading local grids and firing up fossil fuel pollution. The Clean Cloud Act will drive utilities and the burgeoning crypto and AI industries to invest in new sources of clean energy,” the lawmaker stated.
To protect low-income households, 25% of the revenue generated from emissions penalties will offset energy costs. The rest will fund grants supporting long-duration storage and clean power generation projects.
Following this rapid adoption rate, the report forecast that renewables could support over 70% of mining activities by 2030, driven by cost efficiency, evolving policies, and a broader shift toward sustainable practices
Welcome to the US Crypto News Morning Briefing—your essential rundown of the most important developments in crypto for the day ahead.
Grab a coffee for an intriguing dive into what experts say about growing stablecoin adoption. With dollar-pegged digital assets demonstrating significant growth, the threat is real, enough for the US Treasury to take notice.
Crypto News of the Day: Stablecoin Market To Reach $2 Trillion by 2028, US Treasury Projects
In its Q1 2025 report, the US Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) projected that stablecoins could attain a market capitalization of $2 trillion by 2028.
“Evolving market dynamics, structures, and incentives have the potential to accelerate stablecoins’ trajectory to reach ~$2 trillion in market cap by 2028,” read an excerpt in the report.
As BeInCrypto reported, this would constitute a eightfold increase from its current level of approximately $234 billion, with USD-pegged stablecoins dominating (99%) the market.
MEXC exchange COO Tracy Jin agrees, adding that the milestone may be achieved as soon as 2026.
The US Treasury acknowledged that stablecoin issuers would be required to hold [short-dated] T-bills under new regulations. They said this would strengthen the correlation between US Treasury bill demand and stablecoin adoption.
Current state of the stablecoin market. Source: US Treasury
However, the US Treasury also pointed out that stablecoin growth could compel retail banks to pay higher interest rates to depositors.
Against this backdrop, BeInCrypto contacted Max Keiser, who warned about the growing stablecoin market. The Bitcoin pioneer suggested it could exacerbate US debt levels and undermine the dollar’s value.
“Stablecoins are a financial hospice where fiat money like the US dollar goes to die,” Keiser told BeInCrypto.
Keiser argued that increased stablecoin usage dilutes the dollar’s value. In his opinion, the expansion and growth of stablecoin usage will eventually “work the US dollar to death.”
Can Stablecoins Supplant the US Dollar’s Reign? Standard Chartered Weighs In
Keiser linked the rise of stablecoins to increasing national debt, countering political promises of debt reduction.
“It also means that US indebtedness goes up, not down, as Trump has promised,” he added.
BeInCrypto also contacted Standard Chartered Head of Digital Assets Research Geoff Kendrick, who noted the Treasury’s adoption of their $2 trillion stablecoin forecast.
“US Treasury is using our $2 trillion stablecoin forecast for their own projection, as per this TBAC Presentation. The tail is really wagging the dog now,” Kendrick told BeInCrypto.
Kendrick anticipates a surge in stablecoin issuance following upcoming US legislation. While he agrees with the US Treasury’s forecast, there is a caveat, with Kendrick citing implications for the US Treasury bill (T-bill) market.
“Specifically, I think stablecoins will go from $230 billion to $2 trillion by the end of 2028. That growth will require an extra $1.6 trillion of US T-bills to be held as reserves, and that is all of the planned new T-bill issuance over that period,” he added.
Meanwhile, amidst these projects, Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin USDT, is considering launching a US-only stablecoin by late 2025 or early 2026.
“We are just exporters of what we believe to be the best product the United States ever created — that is, the US dollar,” Ardoino said in an interview.
With growing stablecoin adoption expected to give more legitimacy to crypto, Bitcoin (BTC) could benefit from the resultant liquidity. Institutional investors are already pivoting to crypto over traditional assets, as a recent US Crypto News publication indicates.
Chart of the Day
USDT stablecoin market cap vs. USD in circulation. Source: TradingView
The chart shows the market cap of USDT (blue), which accounts for over 60% of the total stablecoin market cap. It has grown significantly since November 2023 compared to the Federal Reserve’s currency in circulation (red), which remains almost flat.
This illustrates the rapid rise of stablecoins relative to the US dollar, highlighting their increasing dominance in the market.
Here’s a summary of more crypto news to follow today:
Bitcoin worth $61 billion nears profitability as early bull signs appear. BTC price shows signs of recovery, with the MVRV ratio bouncing off a historically strong level, signaling potential early bull market conditions.
Base surpasses Arbitrum as the largest Ethereum Layer-2 after a transition from Stage 0 to reach Stage 1 level maturity.
Rice Robotics, a firm specializing in AI-powered robots, is partnering with Floki. The company will launch a Floki-themed robot and its own RICE token, which will be airdropped to FLOKI holders.
The minibot will be an AI-powered task assistant that can offer several services to users. Users will receive RICE tokens for interacting with the minibots, as human data can help train the firm’s AI models.
Today, Floki broke new ground with its Rice Robotics partnership, possibly becoming the first major business relationship between these two spheres:
RICE ROBOTICS TO LAUNCH A CUSTOM FLOKI AI-POWERED ROBOT AND THE $RICE TOKEN
AI robotics startup @realRiceAI will launch a custom Floki AI-powered companion robot. The AI-powered companion robot, named the FLOKI minibot M1, will be natively integrated with the RICE AI… pic.twitter.com/6QQjpBFGqO
Rice Robotics is the parent company that produces the robots, but Rice AI focuses on the software and DePin protocol that powers these machines.
The firm will launch its RICE token through TokenFi, a tokenization platform part of the Floki ecosystem.
Initially, waitlist users and FLOKI holders will receive the RICE tokens in the ensuing airdrop. After this, the main way to farm new tokens will be through interacting with physical robots.
Essentially, the FLOKI M1 minibots can help users with tasks in the house, and they will receive RICE tokens for interactions. In other words, the Floki-themed robots will record human data to train AI protocols.
Users will be financially rewarded for using their robotic assistants, which have several practical uses. The program may extend to other minibots in the future.
The FLOKI M1 minibot is a very ambitious project, and Rice Robotics already has a waitlist open. In the past, it has worked with high-profile clients such as Nvidia (which has an interest in robotics), Softbank, Dubai Future Foundation, and 7-Eleven. The minibot itself will be powered by Nvidia’s nano-computer.
The firm raised $7 million in Series A funding earlier this year and counts SoftBank as a major AI customer. One of its key investors is e-commerce giant Alibaba.
It will be very interesting to see whether Floki and Rice Robotics have a successful partnership. This endeavor is truly unlike anything that the crypto industry has seen before.
Robotics and meme coins don’t have much in common on the surface, but they could combine popular appeal with real usefulness.
