Unpopular Opinion

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technopagan@lemmy.world

-27

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

submitted 4 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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[–] muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not just this but if supply dips or demand goes up rapidly then the miners can stop mining making more energy available to the grid. Funny enough in the us (with how their minute by minute energy auctions) most crypto miners make more money off selling the energy they bought at a low preorder rate at the start of the day back to the grid in the minute by minute rate.

I did the math the other day in some cases being a battery on the grid is actually more profitable than being a crypto miner. That's assuming u are optimising for roi and don't already have mining resources.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I worked with a energy trader, and you have to be really well positioned to do this, but when you can its like magic free money. Basically getting paid for infrastructure risk

[–] muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 2 points 4 days ago

Wow that's cool. I looked into it but where I'm at it wasn't viable unfortunately.