How is an open, permissionless financial network that uses a fraction of a % of the world's energy a scam that will destroy life on Earth? Uninformed, hyperbolic statements about Bitcoin is a sign you're incapable of basic understanding of anything.
If energy efficiency and green energy sources will not suffice to reduce our burning of fossil fuels, due in part to Bitcoin and its ilk, then the only way to avoid climate catastrophe would be simply doing less, a.k.a. degrowth. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine what the typical cryptocurrency advocate thinks of degrowth. (But that would interfere with the numbers going up!)
In short, Bitcoin is a major roadblock to any response to the climate crisis, using any strategy.
This is 100% a fake problem that clearly does not exist if you understood anything about the energy market. Civilization is at an increasing rate consuming more electricity. Surely, someone who believes carbon emissions are destroying the planet would agree we need to electrify everything. Bitcoin consuming and therefore monetizing stranded and/or temporary excess amounts of energy make accelerated electrification of our society a much more realistic endeavor. Having an electricity dung-beetle, a buyer of last resort, is a revelation.
BINGO!
If you have something that will buy any left over or unusable stock of product X, the production of X becomes less risky and easier to invest in. This isn't hard. Bitcoin incentivizes energy production and innovation. If you want that energy to be green, bitcoin is still more than willing to buy it from you. Lowering the risk of innovation in the space is obviously good for green energy.
Your arguments work just as well for reducing risk for investing in "marginal" fossil fuel sources.
Bitcoin does nothing to alter or effect other incentives or disincentives on energy production.
Assuming prices are equivalent, it's net neutral on production mix. However, we've been told renewable energy is cheaper! Therefore it accelerates its adoption.
Please stop saying this. Aluminum refining or hydrogen electrolysis fits so much better and actually benefits society.
Oil and Gas companies are reducing CO2-equivalent emissions by about 63% by mining with flared natural gas: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/23-year-old-texans-made-4-mi...
Large solar farms are being built that otherwise would not have: https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-block-blockstream-m...
You've made your arguement for "planet destroying", now why is it a "scam"?
Of course, the climate crisis is caused in large part by capitalism failing to deal with negative externalities, so one could argue that Bitcoin is just another facet of our corrupt system privatizing benefits and making the public bear the costs. But nevertheless this is a fundamental flaw in arguments that Bitcoin miners only farm where energy is "cheapest".
As for why it's a scam, it's hard to summarize, but I'll try: cryptocurrency is not currency, not decentralized, and not private. https://jacobin.com/2022/01/cryptocurrency-scam-blockchain-b...
Why? Because you said so?
> not decentralized
Bitcoin is quite possibly the most decentralized computer technology ever created. Name something more decentralized.
> not private
I processed around $15k in instant bitcoin transactions this month and have zero insight into who the sender or receiver are
The block reward gets cut in half every couple years. Right now it’s $18M/day, and at its peak it was $60 million per day. Assuming the price of btc doesn’t shoot back up, that puts an upper limit on the amount of money spent by miners on electricity at $60M/day. To put that number in perspective, the US alone spends $3B/day on energy.
And as a typical cryptocurrency advocate, I always find it amusing when HN programmers, probably in the richest 1% of the world globally, talk about how the line going up even more just isn’t really that important. It already went up for you, maybe we should ask people in brazil or in the philippines or in subsaharan africa if they want their line to go up.
Do you understand that heat waves, flooding, forest fires, and other extreme weather events will interfere with the delivery of energy? Do you understand that water shortages will interfere with the delivery of energy (e.g. nuclear power plants need water for cooling)? Do you understand that resource wars will interfere with the delivery of energy? Do you understand that climate change preventing food from growing will interfere with the survival of the people who deliver the energy?
Of course energy is vital to human existence, I recommend e.g. Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil to anyone who wants to understand this in great detail: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/energy-and-civilization But the climate crisis will interfere with energy production and delivery, just as it interferes with everything else that humans want or need to do. Refusing to reduce energy usage voluntarily will result in involuntary reduction in energy usage as systems fail.
This is what I have issue with. Energy use benefits humanity. Full stop.
If you said civilization needs bananas to survive and flourish, then some good samaritan came along and said "I will always buy any leftover bananas you can't sell no matter where or when you grow them", you would get many more banana farms, people experimenting with new banana growing/harvesting technology, etc. It's an undeniable benefit if your goal is to produce more bananas.