Author Ethan Lou’s latest book is Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West.On Monday, the World Economic Forum lent its support to a rather hare-brained plan by a group including Greenpeace: to change bitcoin’s code to make it, in their view, more environmentally friendly.
Consider that this environmental criticism of bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency world is not really because they supposedly use a lot of electricity. It’s like this new age of private space travel. What exactly are all those carbon emissions for? In a recent episode of the Globe’spodcast, science writer Ivan Semeniuk said of the proponents: “They just have a feeling that the long game for humanity somehow involves investment in space.”
This is not an argument against gaming. A gamer might say the activity alleviates stress, fosters community and grants personal gratification. Who am I to say that is not an appropriate use of electricity? In that same vein, though, who is anyone to make that same value judgment about crypto? The more stringent of the ESG adherents would say, “Piss on all of that!” – why reduce the oil industry’s emission when the whole thing should be shut down completely yesterday?
TL;DR it doesn't.