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Comment by codehalo | Hacker News Reader

Can you (and your representative) please just leave me alone so I can harm myself with this "harmful technology"? Whatever the outcome, I'll take my chances. Please leave me alone.

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The harm is not limited to you.

Electricity shortages: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/iran-bans-bitcoin-mining-as-...

Chip shortages: https://www.fxempire.com/forecasts/article/bitcoin-mining-ad...

Ransomware: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-extortion-how-cryp...

In terms of overall negative impacts, crypto is worse than ponzi schemes and online gambling.

Yeah, all the problems of the world are due to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Embarrassingly, more than a decade in, HN is still struggling with it. I don't consider harmful, I consider it a godsend. Ten years ago, I knew HN was wrong, it will still be wrong in a decade.

The environmental harms of cryptocurrencies hurt everyone. It's a classic externality.

Even worse than coal mining and ICE vehicles right? I don't see all this righteousness for those.

I want to see those things go away too, but we're going to need to significantly increase the energy efficiency of our entire society to be able to achieve that. Cryptocurrency mining is anti-efficient, by design. How much coal generation could we retire just by eliminating the energy demand from cryptocurrency mining? I suspect the answer to that question is more than zero.

> The environmental harms of cryptocurrencies hurt everyone. It's a classic externality.

A rational solution would be a carbon tax, so pollution is no longer an externality. Focusing only on Bitcoin only makes sense if one's agenda is just to hurt Bitcoin.

These people really can't help themselves.

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