[ollieglass]

> solving virtually no problem other than avoiding laws about the movement of money and capital

This is a tremendously valuable problem to solve for some.

[jmyeet]

But at what cost?

This [1] estimates the annual Bitcoin energy consumption at 145TWh. If the Bitcoin network were a country it would rank 25 in the world by energy consumption [2].

The cost of that electricity is hard to estimate but if you use a ballpark of $0.10/kWh that puts the cost of the Bitcoin network at almost $15 billion annually just for the electricity.

[1]: https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

[rodgerd]

Yes, it's certainly provided North Korea with a reliable flow of funds for their nuclear weapons program.