[Animats]

Well, of course. It's zero-sum. For everyone who gets fiat out, there has to be someone who put fiat in.

The way they measured this may not be meaningful, though.

[thematrixturtle]

Negative-sum, actually, since the costs of building and operating the mining hardware are massive and have to be paid for by fiat.

[remmargorp64]

Not necessarily. There are situations, for example, where energy that would otherwise be completely wasted is being used to mine BTC.

For example: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/23-year-old-texans-made-4-mi...

[halpert]

The amount of fiat available, and it’s value is not constant so it’s not really zero sum.