Bitcoin disappearing tomorrow wouldn't make a dent in our current fossil fuel emissions. Bitcoin mining ASICs don't emit CO2. Take it up with policymakers who subsidize fossil fuels.
Bitcoin mining currently consumes less that 0.2 % of global energy consumption. Smartphone use and the associated radio infrastructure use somewhere between 1% to 2% of global energy.
How much energy do central and commercial banks, auditors, accountants, corporate currency hedge trading desks, and the armies that back fiat currencies use? Way, way more than bitcoin... and they don't provide a way to pay electric grids to build out renewables the way bitcoin mining does.
It looks like supporting two unwinnable, simultaneous wars in the Middle East that cost the country trillions and hundreds of thousands of humans directly and indirectly murdered.
> Bitcoin disappearing tomorrow wouldn't make a dent in our current fossil fuel emissions. Bitcoin mining ASICs don't emit CO2. Take it up with policymakers who subsidize fossil fuels.
This sounds a lot like you're not contesting the assertion that Bitcoin uses lots of energy, but deflecting the issue by saying it is irrelevant that it uses lots of energy and it's more the responsibility of policymakers to make the energy it uses clean instead of dirty. Am I understanding you correctly?
I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that mining literally emits CO2; the concern is about where the energy itself comes from.
I'm not contesting it no. And I'm saying it's a perfectly valid use of energy. It will use even more energy in future. And it's worth it. Energy use doesn't need defending and isn't a bad thing. Energy secures the financial network, it's doing that work, even if the network isn't useful to you. Disincentivising fossil fuel use for every purpose needs to happen, not just Bitcoin.
> You are worried some tiny fraction of a percent is an issue?
YES.
Adding a whole new country to the map right now, when we don't have enough clean energy to go around, and we are killing our environment with emissions from energy generation, is a BAD idea.
Far from helping to increase demand for clean energy, as is the meme, cryptocurrency mining is incentivising the return of fossil fuel power plants to service (as has happened in the US and other places) and using vast amounts of coal power in places like Kazakhstan. It's the opposite of what we should be doing, which is reducing our power footprint until we have a handle on things.
> There will be 100x, 1000x more energy use in the future in the entire economy.
Maybe, but if that was using our current mix of tech, we'd cook ourselves in the process.
How much energy do central and commercial banks, auditors, accountants, corporate currency hedge trading desks, and the armies that back fiat currencies use? Way, way more than bitcoin... and they don't provide a way to pay electric grids to build out renewables the way bitcoin mining does.