Comment by ucha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ucha | Hacker News Reader

As a store of value, bitcoin does not compare to fiat but to other forms of hard money such as gold. During Bretton-woods, the US dollar and other currencies were redeemable for gold and no one was saying that the US dollar was polluting the world because gold mining is polluting.

Comparing the environmental impact of gold and bitcoin is an open question. Gold mining pollutes the world in ways bitcoin never will. It creates ocean waste [1], long-lasting mercury pollution [2] and more.

As renewable become cheaper than fossil fuels, bitcoin will create additional demand for cheap renewable and accelerate the green transition. Because a mine could be moved essentially anywhere, it can be placed exactly where cheap renewable source of energy can be collected, thus maximizing the return on investment for renewable power plants, for example with geothermal in Iceland [3].

[1] https://www.earthworks.org/blog/drawing-the-battle-lines-ove...

[2] https://theconversation.com/gold-rush-mercury-legacy-small-s...

[3] https://www.wired.com/story/iceland-bitcoin-mining-gallery/

I would agree with your first point, but increasing power consumption to accelerate green transition makes no sense to me.

Green energy is a better solution to energy shortage, it's not something you'd want if there was no need for extra energy. The green energy industry captures financial investments, generates waste and contributes to global warming.

To go ad absurdum, wouldn't increasing CO2 emissions also accelerate the green transition?

Of course if Bitcoin can provide a substantial benefit world-wide then it's energy footprint can be deemed acceptable. I don't have enough experience with it to make such claim but I'm worried about increased fees and transaction times.

> bitcoin will create additional demand for cheap renewable and accelerate the green transition

Bitcoin does not create demand for renewable energy. Bitcoin only creates demand for energy. If bitcoin had significant demand for "cheap renewable energy", then we should have seen bitcoin mining operations concentrating in locations where renewable energy is abundant and land is pretty much useless for anything else. This has not happened in reality.

Furthermore, even if we assume that bitcoin does put demand on renewable energy, since bitcoin mining does not replace other consumers, it is an additional overall energy demand. As long as bitcoin energy consumption grows faster than new renewable installations it effectively runs on carbon.

Uh, there wasn't really anyone talking about environment issues in the 1940's, which is when the system was created, and global warming wasn't established as a firm concern until the 1980's by which time Bretton Woods was dead.

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