[fulvioterzapi]

The vast majority of human activities have a carbon footprint.

I would rather give up Facebook and all other social (which in my opinion add no value to society) rather than cryptocurrencies (which are instrumental to the right of privately transacting online, which I deem very important).

This obsession over the carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is ideological and, ultimately, wrong.

[Mysterise]

> cryptocurrencies (which are instrumental to the right of privately transacting online

Blockchains are public ledgers - this is the opposite of privacy.

[fulvioterzapi]

There are fully anonymous cryptocurrencies. Also, in a public ledger, an address is not directly associated to a person.

[pjc50]

Not immediately, no, but there's no forward secrecy, so unless users take extensive steps to obfuscate their activities, as soon as they make one transaction with a counterparty who knows who they are (such as an exchange with KYC) they are at risk of de-anonymisation.

[ploppyploppy]

There are also Layer 2 technologies

[quickthrower2]

The obsession over the carbon footprint is that it is pure waste (like sticking a gigantic space heater in the middle of nowhere and running it 24/7)

It has an efficiency of approx 0%.

And as it gets more successful it gets less efficient and wastes more energy.

And there is no incentive to reduce that energy usage (Facebook would save money if they could make their algorithms more green, for example so they may pay people to look into that).

Bitcoin has to pollute, for the security of the network.

Also there is the manufacture of disposable single purpose hardware for the mining of bitcoin and it’s environmental impact.

[malka]

> the right of privately transacting online

There is no such right.

[fulvioterzapi]

I think there should be! And I welcome any technology enabling it!