Unpopular Opinion

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technopagan@lemmy.world

-27

Bitcoin is great for the environment in the long run (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by bbsm3678@lemmy.world to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Bitcoin wastes a lot of energy. I agree. It is basically a mechanism to turn energy into something analogous to money.

However, people do not generally live where there is a lot of potential to generate green energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear all generally work best far away from heavily populated areas (this is not always the case). Additionally, wind + solar are highly variable.

Per unit of energy renewable energy will always be more cost effective than fossil fuels in the long run, but there is a high fixed cost at present.

The more sources that can consume energy in remote areas the more incentives there are to build renewable energy sources.

Thus cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are a net positive for building green energy sources in the long term.

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[–] unconsequential@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I know Iceland’s geothermal is a hot spot for mining crypto-currency because it costs absolutely next to nothing. When you’re running massive mining centers off of the earth’s burps there is opportunity to turn a massive profit.

Now, do I think it’s incentivizing a large shift in the production of energy? I’m not sure. Are crypto-bros reinvesting their earnings into renewables research and infrastructure? Or are they buying gas guzzling sports cars and jet setting to all the best parties?

At this point in time, a lot of the “green crypto” feels more like greenwashing than actual ethical development. But who knows, maybe someday that will change?