[pradn]

It's not mental gymnastics to have a legitimate concern about energy usage.

[RGamma]

Especially when the economic value provided by that consumption is virtually zero (net negative with externalities).

I liked the idea of bitcoin when it came out, but as per usual things have just gotten out of hand from there.

[gruez]

Are there similar concerns about the pollution produced by gold mining? eg. "we should ban gold because it's so toxic to mine!"

[tokai]

Yes ofc. Nobody thinks mining is a clean industry.

[gruez]

There might be some concerns (eg. "wow gold mining is dirty, we should do something about it"), but I personally haven't seen anything close to "we should ban gold".

[FrozenSynapse]

because gold is useful, bitcoin only has speculative value

[gruez]

This is addressed in a sibling comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26089473

[dd36]

And gold is useful.

[gruez]

Almost half of the world gold demand is for speculative/investment purposes[1]. If you consider jewelry to be speculative as well (at least partially, since if you only cared about appearance you could just plate it), the vast majority isn't "useful".

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

[avh02]

> Almost half of the world gold demand is for speculative/investment purposes

fair (and I think gold as a "beautiful" metal is dumb), but the other half of the usage (on your claim) is for an array of productive things. I don't see wires, heat reflectors, etc being made out of bitcoin.

[gruez]

>but the other half of the usage (on your claim) is for an array of productive things

It's far less than that. Only 7.48% is definitely useful (under "technology").

[SpicyLemonZest]

There are. They're not super present in the public consciousness because they're drowned out by the concerns about the prevalence of child labor in many countries' gold mines.