Bitcoin does not consume fossil fuel as a raw material; it is not an ingredient required for its operation. It uses electricity which can be generated from any source, be it wind, solar, or coal.
Subsidized coal mining and untaxed carbon emissions are dangerous ideas.
Electricity has higher economic value due to miners seeking to maximize profits.
This makes investments in renewable energy infrastructure more profitable and paid off sooner. A solar farm has more demand and higher margin for its products.
On the other hand, it means cheap coal energy is also financially productive.
What is anti-economical is the unfair price competition due to externalities not captured by coal energy's pricing.
"gratuitous use" is completely subjective, so the anti-economical assertion isn't provable. You're suggesting there are no trade-offs between PoS and PoW, no tradeoffs between solar+batteries vs coal or nuclear.
PoS can be easily copied and modified by the powerful. There's little cost to create the system and force adoption rather than incentivize. There's an enormous amount of investment and technology dedicated to bitcoin that makes it more resistant to devaluation and duplication. But it saves electricity. That's the trade-off.
Why not focus on the source of the electricity rather than what the electricity is used for?
I don't see how proof-of-waste makes bitcoin more resistant to devaluation and duplication. How would switching to proof-of-stake make bitcoin more prone to devaluation, for instance? As far as duplication is concerned, bitcoin is open-source software which means anyone can duplicate it and make derivative works from it. There are dozens of bitcoin clones. It doesn't seem that bitcoin is resistant to duplication at all, or that there is any reason the lack of difficulty with which it can be duplicated should be influenced by whether it uses proof-of-waste or proof-of-stake.
Any software engineer can clone Twitter. The value of it is in the network and the high cost of users switching because they can't convince the people they follow and those who follow them to switch at once. The same applies to Bitcoin, but miners have an even higher cost of switching because they have specialized hardware that can only generate revenue on the Bitcoin network. Ethereum validators have a much lower cost to switch.
> proof-of-waste
It's Proof of Work. Productive work has value and in this case, it's widely distributed censorship-resistant validation of transactions.
Is it? Over time human energy creation and consumption has grown exponentially with technological innovation. Fire to cook meat, a wagon attached to an ox, combustion engines, air conditioning, wireless networks, data centers, etc.
Today you probably consume more energy in a few days than your ancestors whole lives.
Now, we've created distributed, immutable property, something that has never existed before. It turns electricity into value storage. What is the "correct" amount of energy for humans to spend on such a thing?
Energy consumption has nothing to do with increasing planet temperature, if Bitcoin consumed 10x the energy via solar panels, it would not have any environmental impact beyond the raw materials used in the panels.
You're equating energy usage to carbon emissions, but you should be able to distinguish the difference.
> Energy consumption has nothing to do with increasing planet temperature,
As long as we're using fossil fuels, planet temperature does in fact have something to do with energy consumption. You seem to be arguing that because renewable energy sources exists, Bitcoin has nothing to do with fossil fuel emissions. However, that is false, as 8% of Bitcoin mining happens in Inner Mongolia, which is home to many of China's large coal mines[0].
I'm arguing that China subsidizes coal[0], and that China does not utilize a carbon tax[1].
So when you call for a ban of Bitcoin in the name in environmental concerns, you've decided to be the arbiter of energy usage, on what is productive and valuable, and what is not.
You're welcome to argue your points, but it would still be far more efficient and productive to addresses the actual core problem: coal fire plants, and energy prices.
> a bunch of aircraft carriers and planes and bombs and people with big guns, which gives the ability to say (credibly) that it is a crime to forge dollars no matter who you are or where you live
Cryptocurrency offers all this and more for a fraction of the price.
Bitcoin? Yes, it's a useless coin. I wouldn't mind even higher amounts of energy being spent on Monero though.
It's good that Ethereum is moving to proof of stake. Not because of some environmental impact though. Mining is just really expensive, it results in huge fees making the coin almost unusable for normal people.
> Current estimates put bitcoin’s energy requirements at around 130 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, which would rank it in the top 30 electricity consumers worldwide if it were a country.
Not even 1%. The USA alone pollutes a ton more and is always utterly unapologetic about it. Historically I don't think they ever adhered to any global effort or treaty to reduce pollution. You have big entrenched organizations such as the oil industry doing far more damage and nobody messes with them. Not to mention the entire developed world's dependency on China for their borderline useless cheap consumer products.
This concern over the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies is utterly laughable when you figure out the real source of these problems. I guess they're just too powerful to be messed with.
Well, some environmental activists try by turning off oil valves[0], just like environmental activists are upset with Bitcoin.
> You have big entrenched organizations such as the oil industry doing far more damage.
People who criticize Bitcoin for its environmental impact don't give a pass to oil companies. The issues overlap, like in Texas where they plug Bitcoin mining rigs straight into the oil well[1].
But I hear you. All big entrenched organizations must be held accountable. Of course.
The problem isn't even bitcoin mining, it's pollution. The energy usage wouldn't matter at all if it was generated via renewable sources such as solar.
People who want to see real change need to deal with fossil fuels. Taxing mining operations will do absolutely nothing to solve the actual problems of this world.
