What about bitcoin and crypto

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TL;DR

Hot take

Bitcoin and most cryptocurrency schemes require massive amounts of electricity. This is bad news for climate change, it means more work to do.

For what? Magic beans.

Explanation

In 2020-2021 global Bitcoin mining was estimated to use an amount of electricity equivalent to Pakistan, a country with 230 million people.

Because of this high energy demand, a lot of large scale crypto operations have linked up with legacy fossil fuel infrastructure that cannot be shut down rapidly so they can “absorb” this surplus electricity. For example gas turbines and coal fired power plants that are still producing electricity when the grid no longer demands it. To balance the grid, this electricity would normally be dumped - lost.

The crypto nerds use this twisted state of affairs to claim they are are a benefit to climate change. But they are actually prolonging the commercial existence of this fossil fuel infrastructure.

So just use renewable energy right? This is a waste of a precious resource for the computer equivalent of magic beans. The same energy could be powering medical equipment, schools, people’s homes instead.

If we were managing the global economy with an eye on the carbon budget and making serious decisions about how to reduce the demand for electricity then shutting down all this crypto madness is the way to go. It is completely unnecessary.

What about bitcoin and crypto

TL;DR

Explanation

Further reading