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Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

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Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#5

I’m biased but I wonder whether these outlets write more about Bitcoin hurting the environment than oil companies and other energy producers pushing back so hard on alternative energy.

Yes, articles tend to go in groups. Everyone focuses on one topic and then changes.

At the moment the topic seems to be Bitcoin, since it's currently skyrocketing due to Tesla.

But don't worry, they will return to gas/oil soon.

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#7
post #3

If the price of energy is calculated with corresponding carbon tax included, shouldn't Bitcoin be neutral?

> If the price of energy is calculated with corresponding carbon tax included, shouldn't Bitcoin be neutral?

Yes, but there are vastly more energy efficient substitute DLTs with near-zero switching costs. Litecoin and scrypt (instead of AES256), for example.

Apply a USD/kWhr threshold across all industries.

Is this change (and focus on the external costs of energy production) more the result of penalties or incentives?

Pre-mined coins are vastly more energy efficient (with tx costs We have trouble otherwise storing energy from noon to commute and dinner time; whereas a commodity like grain may keep for quite awhile.

Bitcoin serves as a demand subsidy when heavily-subsidized energy prices crash due to oversupply (that we should recognize as temporary because we are moving to electric vehicles and we need to reach production volumes so that, in comparison to alternatives, renewables are now more cost effective)

In the US, we have neither carbon taxes nor intraday prices. The EU has carbon taxes and electrical energy markets.

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#9
post #2

I wonder if Bitcoin could ever migrate to Ethereum technology/proof of stake? It seems like a good idea but the Bitcoin community seems very resistant to change (see block size debate).

Bitcoin will never change. In the future we'll probably see large amounts of BTC wrapped on Ethereum/Avalanche for DeFi trading.

Re: Bitcoin's fundamental value is negative given its environmental impact

#10
Bitcoin could be using clean energy in future (at least there is the opportunity for it) - maybe Tesla does something in this place. Regular finance, banks and money printing are also using a lot of resources. Why does the article not attempt to compare these? Seems more of an opportunistic write up, than an in depth analysis of the problem space.

I guess news outlets also have to ride the hype whenever it happens.

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