Environmental Impact of Mining

“The entire ‘debate’ around Bitcoin’s usage of energy fundamentally rests on whether or not one recognises the need for a politically independent monetary system as a voluntary and freely available alternative to permissioned and often outright weaponised government monies.

If your answer to that is no, then no argument would suffice to convince you that Bitcoin is anything other than a complete waste, whether it consumes one GWh per year or a million. However, in such a case there should also be nothing to worry about: If Bitcoin serves no purpose and is a bubble, then surely no one will be willing to pay its electricity costs over time and it will die, taking its consumption with it.Problem solved, no?

If on the other hand the answer is yes, the story is quite different. Because in return for its electricity consumption, Bitcoin provides a set of unique monetary properties to its users—properties that cannot be replicated by politically dependent monies nor by physical commodity monies.

This is what its users are paying for, and they all think it’s worth the cost.”

https://coinshares.com/research/closer-look-environmental-impact-of-bitcoin-mining

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

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