This article has some cute analogies and makes for some fun reading, but I guess if you wanted to amp up the alarmism maybe this is a good read. I mean seriously, it’s not a secret that consuming energy uses energy, and no one in blockchain disagrees that Proof of Work is energy intensive, the point is the relative energy usage to the maintenance of fiat value.Lets start here:
Bitcoin uses very little energy to provide a strong financial system. Let’s compare to another financial system, one based on the dollar. To make a dollar worth a dollar, you have the entire US government, it’s military, its corporate stronghold of economic power, and a bazillion other things that make faith in the dollar strong. If any one of those things fail, the value of the dollar will implode. How much energy is burned in running that machine?
0.29 quadrillion watt-hours and thats just the federal government, that doesnt even the corporate backbone funding the government. That number is 2–75 times higher depending on where you want to draw a line. And this is just the US! Bitcoin works for the whole world! Even Your research article points out that a the bitcoin economic system, that serves the entire world, compares to the energy consumption of Jordan or Sri Lanka. Is Bitcoin really the problem? Seems like the “dirty economy” finger should be pointed at the governments of the world and not the inclusive economic system that is better.
Then there is this:
And that’s just Bitcoin. Include all the other cryptocurrencies and researchers estimate that energy consumption — and resultant carbon emissions — would almost double.
The great majority of cryptocurrencies arent even their own blockchains, they are tokens on another blockchain. Their energy usage doesn’t add to the total energy usage very much. But even more importantly, most modern cryptocurrencies have moved to a proof of stake system, or another type of consensus system which is even more inclusive than proof of work for bitcoin, because the barrier to entry is much lower (they can run on a 35 dollar respberry pi, or on the computer they already use), even the #2 blockchain is moving to Proof of Work.
There is no dirty little secret, unlike governments, the cryptocurrency markets are already addressing the energy usage issues. If only governments would do the same.
If you want to write about a dirty little secret, then look up how a 512qbit equivalent quantum computer will be able to resolve the private key from any public key thus making the value of bitcoin….zero. The market will accomodate that too. Will the government be able to in time?
