O’Leary is interested in “tagging,” or wrapping bitcoin that has been mined sustainably, and called upon miners to approach institutions with a plan.

While the idea sounds like a win-win, the use of mining pools and the essential fungibility of BTC has drawn skepticism from miners and prominent members of the industry. Nic Carter has called so-called “clean bitcoin” a chimera: something more imaginary than real. 

Still, O’Leary, a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, is eyeing opportunities to support firms that can offer resources and structure for green mining. Greener practices, he says, will help stoke demand and drive up asset prices. 

“That is what institutions want, and when that dam gets released the amount of capital that will come into bitcoin… it’ll be the reason it goes to a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand.”

“Everybody that owns bitcoin today, regardless of how it was mined, is incentivized to solve this problem for one reason alone, price appreciation.”