Why? This is not a free market, nor a market price that reflects externalities of generating that energy. I'm not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets.
market is definitely not free at this point because of how much subsidy fossil producers receive from corrupt politicians.
doubly funny your worries about externalities, when bitcoin actually meaningfully drives renewable production that is going to be essential in reducing those externalities.
> not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets
packed as much manipulation and misinformation as you could into that one, didn't you?
i'm more than ok with significant chunk of energy's energy going into ensuring security of a global decentralized settlement layer and currency with predictable issuance policy that can't be fucked up by politicians that suddenly realize they need to print a couple trillions to cover up how much they stole.
> when bitcoin actually meaningfully drives renewable production that is going to be essential in reducing those externalities.
I am so sick of this bs argument from bitcoin apologists. Cryptocurrencies drive renewable energy in the same way lung cancer drives chemotherapy drugs.
It doesn’t matter if renewable energy is built if that new energy is being wasted on cryptocurrency instead of replacing fossil fuel energy for something else.
> It doesn’t matter if renewable energy is built if that new energy is being wasted on cryptocurrency instead of replacing fossil fuel energy for something else.
yes it absolutely matters, because expanding the market of energy with renewable energy is unquestionably better than expanding it with fossil producers. bitcoin difficulty fluctuates with uncertainty in politics, demand for security and demand for the asset itself. when difficulty goes down - freed up energy can be used by other market participants and that will hurt profitability of fossil producers.
this is not bs argument, it's reality.
also, "energy is being wasted" is your subjective understanding.
