Less than an hour ago, someone on here [posted a story]( from the Guardian titled “Bitcoin miners revived a dying coal plant – then CO2 emissions soared”. It’s an interesting story, you should read it. Factual, well-informed reporting, as most articles are in the Guardian. Honestly, that article is more informative and interesting than 99% of the articles that usually get posted.
However: it highlights a negative aspect of crypto, or more specifically PoW/ Bitcoin, and shows that this “they exclusively use renewable energies, BTC is good for the environment!!” narrative is, of course, not true. For that reason, it received negative karma, with the first comments being stuff like “Typical crap to come out of the guardian” and just “Ffs”.
At the same time, [a post re-warming a dodgy survey from 2 months ago]( that was already posted 1000 times back then but is “bullish” for crypto gets 90% upvotes and voted to “hot” and nobody questions whether those numbers are true.
Come on guys. You can do better.
Yeah the sub has a habit of marking anything negative as FUD, even if it’s objectively true.
Sure some things might not be as bad as they seem but doesn’t mean we should ignore all bad news
They should have revived a nuclear plant
Always important to remember that probably 90% of r/cc’s user base is made up of 16-22 year olds with $300 bags.
__Imagine__ a crypto currency subreddit where everyone has money to lose, upvoting or acknowledging negative PR…
Give me another story about a country accepting crypto and you’ll be upvoted to the moon though…
I don’t think anyone said crypto miners use solely renewable energy. The narrative I’ve always seen is that they seek out the cheapest energy sources. Which renewables are starting to become cheaper than their natural gas/coal counter parts.
And look at that Kraken thread at the top of the sub.
If thats considered ‘good advice’ and not just ‘no shit’ news, do you fuckers know anything about this shit…?
Its like **a lot** of things in the world right now; a huge number of the people in the ‘community’ are really just larping.
C’mon, everyone knows that crypto sucks (at least current state of crypto). POW is not environment friendly, POS is not reliable and means nothing but the digital oligarchy, POA is centralized, which is against the idea of crypto. Virtually no crypto projects are resistant to quantum computers. ETH gas prices are high, Solana and Ada work as shit. The Bitcoin community full of psycho-maxis. 90% of crypto projects are scam. Dog coins are reincarnated tulip mania.
But the stock market is overblown, the inflation is huge, governments are not trustful and the crypto looks *relatively* promising. That’s why we are here.
At the end of the day, ethics and principles go out the window for people when their money is on the line.
The entire world should be run on green, renewable energy, but there are too many people that fight progress. Bitcoin could and should be entirely green, but greed and stupidity will always win in the short term. Long term progress will win. For now focus on you. Save your money, be smart with it. Get your land, get off the grid with your own green energy. Setup your own nodes and rigs. Store your value, secure the network, secure your freedom.
Honestly, I agree with you and a lot of it comes down to the fact that most people don’t truly understand crypto. This is also why you see so much insane whataboutism on this sub – instead of debunking criticisms, people have to resort to calling out hypocrisy or claiming it’s FUD, which is never a good way of winning debates.
>However: it highlights a negative aspect of crypto, or more specifically PoW/ Bitcoin, and shows that this “they exclusively use renewable energies, BTC is good for the environment!!” narrative is, of course, not true. For that reason, it received negative karma, with the first comments being stuff like “Typical crap to come out of the guardian” and just “Ffs”.
This is a great example of people not understanding WHY Bitcoin can be good for the environment and just regurgitating simplified talking points they’ve heard. Bitcoin is energy agnostic, miners seek the lowest cost energy, regardless of its makeup. This can lead to incentivizing green energy adoption since green energy is often wasted, but sometimes because of subsidies or other reasons, it will lead to miners using coal or other dirty energy sources.
PoW roots digital scarcity in physical reality. That’s worth the energy consumption. Otherwise you’re just playing a pretend game.
Constructive criticism is very important and we should ensure we welcome it rather than shutting down anything negative.
And yes this includes your favourite coins. The best way for the coin to grow is for its weaknesses to be made clear, so that the devs can work on that.
You lost me at “as most articles are in the guardian”
I see it and that fucking sucks that they used an old coal plant. But guess what, assholes exist in the world. Bitcoin is not the asshole, bitcoin can be used for good or can also be used for bad. Just like most things. I can use my steak knife to eat some food, or rob a grocery store, or stab someone. That doesn’t mean steak knives should be outlawed. I 100% do not ignore the fact that Bitcoin is being used for some shitty things. I just rightfully don’t blame Bitcoin for something some asshole human MADE THE CHOICE to do.
This goes for almost everything bitcoin can do. You can give bitcoin to charity, you can use bitcoin for human trafficking. You can help a renewable energy plant make money off its excess power generation, you can revive and old coal plant. You can drive a Tesla to work in the morning, you can drive a Tesla into a crowd of people.
How do we not understand that humans are to blame in these instances rather than a bunch of lines of code?
Getting mad at Proof of Work is so fucking stupid. It can easily be used for good as well, and the people that know the most about this, understand that Proof of Work is still a VERY important part of sound money, maybe not a smart contract platform, but of sound money, absolutely. But of course people come on here visit some bullshit sub for a shitcoin that runs on proof of stake and is convinced that Proof of Work is outdated.
Proof of Stake actually existed before Bitcoin. It was Proof of Work that was the new technology and made possible the most decentralized and secure monetary network that’s ever existed. People here don’t not know shit about fuck, so much so that the shit they think they know isn’t even shit at all, it’s cum.
Who said we are adults? ^^
I’m confused, who says BTC uses renewable? It’s not a centralized entity that can point to 1 power source, and the rest of the post is about coal and co2? A little clarity please
>this “they exclusively use renewable energies, BTC is good for the environment!!” narrative is, of course, not true
You killed the crap out of the strawman, dude.
What sane person has ever claimed BTC is *exclusively* mined by renewables? It wasn’t even at 50% renewable when Tesla announced they were going to stop accepting it as payment.
It’s called Falsification bias which is the opposite of confirmation bias. It means you actively look for evidence which disproves your point of view rather than confirm it.
I don’t care about the argument of whether or not BTC is good or bad for the environment. I care that is it on the verge of upending the current fiat monetary system that is enslaving the world population more and more by the day. The people that control the current system couldn’t give 2 shits about the environment. They fly around the globe in private jets while bitching at you for driving your car to work everyday just so you can get by. They will use every and any excuse at their disposal to maintain control of our lives.
Is bitcoin bad for the environment? Possibly, I don’t know for sure and nobody else can say definitively that it’s anything worse than what’s already in play. Look at what mining gold does… Can it be used for nefarious reasons? Yes, but so can literally anything else that was ever created by man.
In my eyes, the existence and use of BTC will ALWAYS be the least of all monetary evils. Right now, the world is learning that it has the power to destabilize the current system that manufactures financial crises that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. THAT needs to stop and the only way for it to happen is by force via BTC. Maybe when the system collapses and the people see with their own eyes how badly they’ve been played by such a fragile system would the world be a better place. Countless wars have been started by these ruling govts for the right to declare their fiat is the most valuable, when in fact they are all equally worthless! Their goal is to be in control of the means to rule over people by declaring the money their populations utilize is the right and proper one and they will stop at nothing to acquire and maintain the illusion of worth by force. We will never have ANY semblance of harmony in the world as long as someone or entity can simply ‘declare’ they hold the means of value. The system needs to be toppled. But until it is, no one will ever convince me that BTC is anything but the savior of our human race and the key to evolving beyond manufactured wars based on lies. We can’t fix the planet until we fix the way our societies operate. It starts with the forcing the monetary system to be based on REAL money. Once govts accept that their lies and decrees are no longer the currency of our realm, we can move forward as species.
You can call me crazy, but I don’t care. I’m not falling for anymore bullshit and I refuse to accept ANY excuse as to why we still need the current system. It does not and has not done ANYTHING positive for the human race. Quite the opposite, in fact.
BTC forever!!!
Reddit is for circle jerking and karma farming.
The question mark is the most operative character in the post, possibly in the sub today. There’s nothing adult about that.
I’m 100% aware that there’s a ton of problems
I’m just betting that the positives outweigh the negatives
I’ve never said anything like that. How dare you accuse me of that!
I’m fairly certain most crypto hodlrs understand bitcoin increases electricity usage. In response, I believe many of us don’t believe bitcoin is even the best crypto, but rather a stepping stone catalyst of mass adoption to greener technologies and blockchains, so you’re already missing the point. The fact that you mentioned it would be green if we used renewables is exactly why the article you mentioned doesn’t do shit in curbing my enthusiasm and is also why I don’t support PoW but rather PoS or PoA. I agree that we need to be more aware as a community but the presented article says more about human behavior than crypto itself
Personally, I really love sending crypto to someone and them being able to see how much money is in my wallet, and what ins and outs I have had.
I also really enjoy sending crypto to an exchange and them selling the info about my wallet incomings and outgoings to the adtech firms to help create a template of my disposable income levels, so that they know what ads to target me with.
I legit don’t care about how much energy it uses.
Thing is for all the negative press CO2 emissions for bitcoin mining gets, literally ALL of the other stuff that is actively harming the environment a lot worse never gets mentioned.
Countries are still burning coal for power, countries are not making active efforts to move away from fossil fuels, large oil corporations have money in the pockets of politicians worldwide to continue lax laws on CO2 emissions are guaranteed. But none of this is reported on as such a menace as bitcoin mining.
So then you have to start to question, why is bitcoin mining purported to be the worlds leading CO2 emission issue when the reality is there is a lot worse going on?
As long as we are still pumping oil out the ground and Las Vegas is lit up like a Christmas tree 24/7 I honestly could not give 2 shits about bitcoin mining.
Edit: also to add to this, if you don’t like it, then don’t buy bitcoin? There’s tons of POS coins out there you can invest in. DYOR at the end of the day.
If you feel this strongly about it I hope any pension or other investment you hold is not invested in a fossil fuel company at all & is only invested in companies you have vetted for their CO2 emissions as otherwise that would be hypocrisy.
I don’t think anyones denying it. People (inc. myself) are just fed up of the negative energy narrative. Yes PoW requires energy to stay secure, other industries use comparatively more energy and produce less efficient output (how much energy do you think is consumed to keep the corrupt global fiat banking system afloat? )
The energy consumption is the cost of maintaining the world’s most secure monetary network. Consider the laws of conservation. Personally I think the energy consumption is actually a potential driver for innovation and change – already sparking conversations and research around harnessing volcanic and other naturally occuring, renewable energies.
Ultimately, people’s moral compasses are often guided by whatever narrative is sensationalised through media channels and without critical comparison and analysis against other, opposing narratives. It’s easy to point the finger when you can only see half the picture but IMO it’s worth learning why BTC was coded in the first place and then deciding whether you think directly empowering people financially for the first time in history is worth the energy consumption or not. And it’s definitely worth considering what the future of digital finance looks like without crypto…
It’s actually hilarious how we’ve all been knowing that Bitcoin’s PoW is bad for the environment but people STILL get mad whenever anyone mentions it. The maxis just do the equivalent of throwing their fingers in their ears and screaming “LALALALALA I can’t hear you!”
The guardian is garbage journalism
How is this a Bitcoin problem and not energy producer problem?
I pay for the electricity and use it however I want. It’s not up to consumers to solve these issues:
– The government can raise prices
– The government can raise taxes
– The government can limit consumption per household
– The government can limit production per unit of time
– The government can finance research on “greener” production
– The government can invest into projects for “green” energy
Etc.
I’m not supporting all of these ideas, but saying that miners are the one to solve electricity consumption is simply stupid…
Why would they? So that those that won’t continue enjoying the abundant lifestyle of watching TV and having light in their homes?
Nobody wants to be the sucker. Nobody likes to be the one paying the price for a “problem” that the society ignores.
And it’s neither Bitcoin’s nor any miner’s fault.
We are the poison, everything we do as humans is poisonous for everything
Pretty important snippet
“Go back to 2020, renewable companies weren’t offering energy to bitcoin miners,” said Thiel. “Very few people wanted to even deal with bitcoin miners in the energy world. And so bitcoin miners spent time looking for stranded assets. And so the only way for us to mine was to find stranded energy, which we did in finding the Hardin plant.”
This piece could be narrated so differently…
Did you see the other article in the Guardian where they’re using heat from a bitcoin mining plant to dry firewood? It would normally be done using giant electric ovens so this is one way of reducing the carbon footprint of crypto.
Well-informed reporting from Guardian ehh? Is Snowden providing them with sources and materials this time too?… /jk
Demonizing PoW or Bitcoin won’t solve the climate change problem. The real problem is the fossil fuel companies that do the actual polluting. Blaming bitcoin for climate change is like fighting the war on drugs by only busting drug users and not suppliers.
Factual and well informed from the Grauniad? You are kidding me right? It’s is left wing and has a stated policy of pushing the climate change agenda to the point that a couple of years ago they stated the would no longer refer to global warming but global **heating**. That’s from the top so to suggest they are impartial (that is what ‘factual’ and ‘well-informed’ imply) is well wide of the mark. But as Simon and Garfunkel said, *a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest*, and hasn’t it always been so?
When FUD comes I act like Joey, my master.
I think the negative energy consumption part of bitcoin is bullshit negative propaganda.
For thought, how much energy does it take for the internet to operate constantly?
I think that blows the prior argument out of the water.
Yep.
**Just because you don’t like or agree with the news, that doesn’t mean it’s FUD.**
I don’t think anyone is saying BTC is good for the environment but the extent is definitely exaggerated. Pretty much anything that’s worth $1 trillion is going to be bad for the environment
I do agree, we should do better. I’m not sure we actually can though.
Coal production and usage is *increasing worldwide*, especially in China. But yes, obviously crypto will destroy the environment.
The real(non straw man) environmental argument is not just it uses renewables.
It also sounds like you never truly took the time to learn about Bitcoin or POW or why Bitcoin would Never move to PoS even if it was as easy as snapping my fingers.
If you want to see the POW side of the debate, Read all of Nic Carter’s work. Check out the Seetee shareholder letter, check out the square/ark research paper, Lyn Aldens Mining research. Jeff Booths arguments on inflation and it’s effects on consumption and the environment. And then learn why we can be confident Bitcoin will have a consistent monetary schedule and hard cap, which ties into that argument inextricably. Bitcoin is energy deflationary. It will likely have a net positive effect on the environment(see Jeff Booth argument) and certainly a positive effect on human energy production and therefore progress. This is all on top of strengthening grids and incentivizing renewables.
It also would help you to realize why POW is necessary.
With POS You have to trust that the ledger you are getting is the right one, you can’t just verify it’s the most work, wealth is centralizing into jurisdictions and entities over time, energy is distributed across Jurisdictions, (Look at how centralized wealth is into one country today, and centralized within that country. There is no stopping it. But energy is well distributed across jurisdictions and borders. With consequences from long term capital commitments to build money production facilities and an inability to centralize those resources) without unforgeable costliness its basically the same as the system we have now, especially with the fact that a small group will always control it and decide the monetary policy. look through history (money quickly becomes worthless when the cost to produce disappears-Rye stones, glass beads, cloth strips, fiat etc)Read Debt the First 5000 Years and some of Nick Szabos work like Shelling Out and his Bitcoin 2021 speech. Wouldn’t hurt to read Inventing Bitcoin either. “With POW, anyone can plug in a miner to receive Bitcoin in return for verifiable work, it’s permission less. POS requires permission, you have to purchase tokens from existing stakeholders. “(Odell) There is no way to forcefully dislodge a majority stakeholder. (Think nation state game theory, not just individual level for the previous two points) Also a constantly changing monetary policy that you can’t plan with as a person nor company, and calls into question future scarcity, premine(no fair distribution), needs time as an input whereas Bitcoin is a time chain that doesn’t need to trust an input. And POS doesn’t encourage a faster build out of green energy getting us to a type one civilization faster.
Links:
Nick Szabo: Shelling Out: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/
Jeff Booths best stuff is on the What Is Money Podcast probably. https://overcast.fm/+mNduVhGsI (what is money episode 15) But anything new would have him talking about this. He is on multiple podcasts.
Nic Carter: https://twitter.com/nic__carter/status/1481650659548008451?s=21 https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/10/11/bitcoin-mining-is-reshaping-the-energy-sector-and-no-one-is-talking-about-it/ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCYx36L1AA Several more top tier articles by Nic: https://niccarter.info/topics/#energy
Ark & Square: https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/2D2BnksJjavw4a6SUvAPwZ/c42a9e3a520b0cc3b230cda3b43eead5/BCEI_White_Paper_.pdf
Seetee: https://www.seetee.io/static/shareholder_letter-6ae7e85717c28831bf1c0eca1d632722.pdf
Lyn Alden: https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-energy/
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Assoc 2021 Inflation report. Just demonstrates Jeff Booths point about how inflation forced consumption stretches our natural resources and fossil fuels to the breaking point. https://www.bridgewater.com/its-mostly-a-demand-shock-not-a-supply-shock-and-its-everywhere
Lyn Aldens Take on POS: https://www.lynalden.com/proof-of-stake/ https://twitter.com/lynaldencontact/status/1487946348448174080?s=21
Some of Satoshi’s musings on gold and PoW/unforgeable costliness
https://github.com/NakamotoInstitute/nakamotoinstitute.org/search?q=gold&type=
60% of electricity in the US is generated from fossil fuels. Televisions have been running on dirty energy for decades
physical gold mining uses MUCH more emissions.
Why is Tesla good but Bitcoin bad? Or E Cars in general. I don‘t get it honestly.