[crazygringo]

Well could you please explain the side you think they are taking, what the other side is, and what kinds of facts support that side?

Because I honestly don't know them. Claiming an article is "this biased" doesn't help anyone here if you don't explain why.

[walkhour]

A non biased article would've mentioned how much Bitcoin mining accounts for the total energy used in US. And that would've been compared to the energy used in other industries. Take videogames for example. Just that datum would've changed the whole narrative of the article. The article does mention something in passing about how other industries at least bring jobs. I guess that's a net positive then.

Were the authors aware of how tiny Bitcoin usage is and how much waste there is going around? Of course they were. Was this datum useful to the reader? Yes. Did the authors purposefully decide to exclude this datum because it didn't fit the narrative? Of course.

Just imagine your average reader, if at the end of the article they were told, that we can't even agree on whether Bitcoin mining consumes more power than Christmas lights. Apparently that was not the case using the 2008 Christmas lights usage, and we don't know now, because both sides of the argument get wildly different values.

Your average reader leaves the article thinking they know everything they need to know about Bitcoin: it's bad because it makes energy more expensive, and people have died, possibly because energy was expensive.

[trog]

> A non biased article would've mentioned how much Bitcoin mining accounts for the total energy used in US. And that would've been compared to the energy used in other industries. Take videogames for example. Just that datum would've changed the whole narrative of the article. The article does mention something in passing about how other industries at least bring jobs. I guess that's a net positive then.

How would this be useful? Just comparing it to random things that also use electricity?

You need to do a like-for-like comparison. Bitcoin's ostensible purpose is as a currency, or some sort of financial trading instrument for speculation, so it should be compared to the energy efficiency in other financial systems.

It is, of course, woefully, embarrassingly inefficient when compared on energy use basis. The only thing that matters is: what does this energy inefficiency give you in return? The answer is 'decentralisation'.

As always, the question is about whether or not 'decentralisation' is useful, important, valuable, whatever. For most people, today, it simply is not, as evidence by the fact that absolutely nobody uses Bitcoin for any sort of practical transactional stuff.

[crazygringo]

Thanks for the perspective, I appreciate it. Although again, the article does not lead anyone to think Bitcoin causes deaths. That's a misreading of it.

I got curious, of course. If my math and research is correct, it seems like Bitcoin uses 127 terawatt-hours per year globally [1], and the US does 38% of worldwide Bitcoin mining [2], for 48 TWh/yr. In comparison, total US energy usage is 4,019 TWh [3], so Bitcoin is 1.2%. In comparison, holiday lights use somewhere between 3.5 TWh [4] and 6.63 TWh [5] according to a couple estimates, which is 0.08%-0.16%, or about an order of magnitude less than Bitcoin.

But I don't really see how any of this contradicts the narrative of the article. The article itself was pushing back on the narrative that Bitcoin mining in the US is insignificant and/or powered by renewables. It's clear that 1.2% is quite significant, and most of it is powered by fossil fuels, and it's raising electricity prices for people. Is this a good use of carbon, and of consumer finances? The article does quote people saying it ought to be considered an industry like any other, but of course that has to be balanced against the question of whether Bitcoin can be considered economically "productive" in any sense like other industries, or if it's merely a speculative asset with zero productive value at all.

But in the end, the article isn't attempting to survey the entire landscape of Bitcoin. It's focusing on the fossil fuel consumption footprint in the US which is brand new over the past few years, and it seems to do a good job at raising awareness for that. I certainly hadn't been aware of that until now, and I'm glad I am.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/cryptocurrency/bitc...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/09/08/fact...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-power-use-rise-20...

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/12/20/the-energ...

[5] https://mrelectric.com/blog/how-much-electricity-do-christma...