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> Watt-hour of hydro or solar that goes to mining Bitcoin could have been used to reduce demand for power generated from fossil fuels.

No, that power would have gone to reducing the price of power and people would have found new uses for it.

I love the Jevons paradox but it has limits. Per capita energy consumption in the US peaked in 1979 and has dropped 14% in the last 20 years. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T...

In the context of Jevons, wouldn’t that explain why we have bitcoin?

But those new uses (presumably improvements to quality of lives) are now gone because the electricity is used in mining bitcoins.

Yes, people used it for the best available purpose. If that purpose was not available to them they would have chosen something inferior.