[photochemsyn]

Enron tried to trade natural gas futures; it only caused massive price swing and economic disaster for anyone buying those contracts. They tried to privatize water systems, and that was another disaster:

https://www.citizen.org/news/enrons-failure-in-water-venture...

Overall, Enron is a good example for why critical infrastructure like water and energy should be nationalized and stabilized - the opposite of investment capitalism's casino approach - not because it would form the basis of a communist utopia, but because every other competitive market industry relies on those basic services to thrive and grow.

[AlexandrB]

This is also why industries like Bitcoin mining can be so corrosive. You can't stabilize the price of a commodity like energy if there's an entity that can generate nearly infinite demand.

[bequanna]

Well, the rewards for Bitcoin mining are zero-sum so the demand will never really be infinite as the miners need some amount of profitability.

[AlexandrB]

Fair enough. Though as long as the price of bitcoin continues to increase demand for compute can continue increasing as well.

[bequanna]

Right, but I believe halving of rewards also keeps the compute growth in check somewhat.

I suppose it just depends on how BTC price increases vs the halving timeline.