Bitcoin kills hundreds of thousands of people annually? Makes me wonder about the industries that use orders of magnitudes more energy. The production of phones must kill millions. Cars must kill tens of millions.
Trying to kill energy consuming industries is probably a lost cause. As much as I'd love for a completely green world I suspect the only real solution will be advancements in clean and renewable energy such as nuclear and fusion.
People have talked about Bitcoin as a "battery", where you can use it to absorb excess electricity and then use the Bitcoin you earn to pay for the electricity elsewhere, but that's super dumb because then the energy is being used twice.
Crypto exchanges and VCs make most of their money by moving people off of Bitcoin to altcoins. Sadly this industry will live for a long time as long as people believe they can find the ,,next Bitcoin''.
That is not possible as it will always find an equilibrium of miners that find it less worthwhile vs the supply. Less miners means less supply means higher price means more miners etc..
You'd have to kill bitcoin completely somehow by the price going so low that it will never recover due to people believing it can never recover. If nobody believes it will ever be a higher price than it is now than nobody would ever buy any.
It passed that point of no return a long time ago.
You don't think that burning tons of energy -- which might go to other things -- on effectively casino tokens, is not putting the environment at unnecessary risk?
Unscientific, sensationalist, and pretty much wrong.
It’s just not a great argument, and doesn't consider the opposition argument - the human rights benefits (for people fleeing war zones, in predatory monetary regimes, etc.) are worth the electricity usage – because people/the market are valuing it that way.
Dryers are unnecessary - we could airdry all of our clothes, but we value the convenience it brings. The value that bitcoin brings in terms of human rights is much greater than the convenience of dryers, yet we hear nothing about "banning dryers" or "dryers killing people".
The climate argument against crypto is FUD. The entire crypto mining industry contributes less than 0.5% to global pollution. You can do more by getting rid of your refrigerator.
This argument is incredibly tired and inaccurate. The majority of Bitcoin mining happens on renewable power and actually HELPS the renewables industry by making renewables more profitable by buying off-peak and surplus energy.
Additionally, the OP conflates power consumption with emissions.
Home mining of Eth is significantly more harmful because cities are still majority powered by coal and gas. If you want to get mad about cryptocurrency power usage, focus your attention there.
> actually HELPS the environment by making renewables more profitable by buying off-peak and surplus energy
I've heard this argument before, and it's intriguing. But I would imagine that storing that energy into batteries, or diverting it to where it might be needed but isn't available, would be a better use of surplus energy. Bitcoin might be competing with that, and that might be bad.
[edit]
Also, the ASICs used to mine BTC take energy to produce. And what do you do with them once they're obsolete?
[edit]
Or let's say you've got a factory producing goods. Then wouldn't it make sense to ramp up production during off-peak hours? At least it would be producing actual goods instead of casino tokens.
This ignores the positive case that bitcoin saves lives, and thus seems like a dishonest argument.
Would it save more lives than it would end, if it were to replace fiat currency? I have no doubt that the answer is overwhelmingly "yes." The fiat system grossly distorts all economic activity.
A few examples. The fiat system is what allows the US government to pursue endless wars and to generally expand without bound. The fiat system that is allowing the uber wealthy to acquire all real estate in the US and turn us into a nation of renters. The fiat system causes stocks (and all other assets, in fact) to be a store of wealth instead of an investment, totally distorting stock valuations and thus breaking the stock market as a measurement of the future earnings of companies. The fiat system makes it impossible to store wealth without being a speculator.
[+] [-] izzydata|3 years ago|reply
Trying to kill energy consuming industries is probably a lost cause. As much as I'd love for a completely green world I suspect the only real solution will be advancements in clean and renewable energy such as nuclear and fusion.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] PaulHoule|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtolds|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiphias2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newswasboring|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izzydata|3 years ago|reply
You'd have to kill bitcoin completely somehow by the price going so low that it will never recover due to people believing it can never recover. If nobody believes it will ever be a higher price than it is now than nobody would ever buy any.
It passed that point of no return a long time ago.
[+] [-] axx0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ogogmad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] polygamous_bat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bethecloud|3 years ago|reply
It’s just not a great argument, and doesn't consider the opposition argument - the human rights benefits (for people fleeing war zones, in predatory monetary regimes, etc.) are worth the electricity usage – because people/the market are valuing it that way.
Dryers are unnecessary - we could airdry all of our clothes, but we value the convenience it brings. The value that bitcoin brings in terms of human rights is much greater than the convenience of dryers, yet we hear nothing about "banning dryers" or "dryers killing people".
[+] [-] frank_bb|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] syncerr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jaxkr|3 years ago|reply
Additionally, the OP conflates power consumption with emissions.
Home mining of Eth is significantly more harmful because cities are still majority powered by coal and gas. If you want to get mad about cryptocurrency power usage, focus your attention there.
Good Harvard Business Review article: https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actuall...
[+] [-] ogogmad|3 years ago|reply
I've heard this argument before, and it's intriguing. But I would imagine that storing that energy into batteries, or diverting it to where it might be needed but isn't available, would be a better use of surplus energy. Bitcoin might be competing with that, and that might be bad.
[edit]
Also, the ASICs used to mine BTC take energy to produce. And what do you do with them once they're obsolete?
[edit]
Or let's say you've got a factory producing goods. Then wouldn't it make sense to ramp up production during off-peak hours? At least it would be producing actual goods instead of casino tokens.
[+] [-] jsaxton86|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javert|3 years ago|reply
Would it save more lives than it would end, if it were to replace fiat currency? I have no doubt that the answer is overwhelmingly "yes." The fiat system grossly distorts all economic activity.
A few examples. The fiat system is what allows the US government to pursue endless wars and to generally expand without bound. The fiat system that is allowing the uber wealthy to acquire all real estate in the US and turn us into a nation of renters. The fiat system causes stocks (and all other assets, in fact) to be a store of wealth instead of an investment, totally distorting stock valuations and thus breaking the stock market as a measurement of the future earnings of companies. The fiat system makes it impossible to store wealth without being a speculator.