Don’t believe that Bitcoin is wasteful. We are building the global financial and economic infrastructure for the 21st century, the Bitcoin Network. There are superficial arguments that Bitcoin must be stopped, but they are misplaced.We are building the global financial and economic infrastructure for the 21st century, the Bitcoin Network.
Don’t Believe That Bitcoin is Wasteful
When you think about money , you think of a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value, which was used over the course of the history of human civilization.
Today the most advanced form of money is represented by Blockchain-based networks, in particular Bitcoin.
Bitcoin today is Proof of Work. It is important to understand why it has this particular feature, and if it is fit to replace traditional forms of money.
In the past for thousands of years, we have had gold backed money, and that too was Proof of Work. And gold mining has a huge CO2 footprint, as well.
Think about it: in order to have gold backed money, you had to discover, develop and control goldmines, and then extract, refine, transport, and store the gold. This is a huge effort that made everyone trust your money.
Modern forms of traditional money are Proof of Work as well: the petrodollar shows the ability of the United States to protect oil trade, and impose the monopoly use of the USD on it.
Fiat currencies, such as the Euro, derive their value from the cumulative effort of the people working in the economies issuing them.
We have an abundance of energy, and Bitcoin computers are not going to fry the world; compared to other uses of energy, their mix is one of the most sustainable, coming from renewable sources at around 50%, and increasingly so.
Bitcoin is going to bootstrap the world into discovering new opportunities and new ways to build a civilization. You must understand the details of this, so that you do not fall prey to the superficial analysis that is directed against it from incumbent interests.
The reason why you must understand it is because it is unstoppable, not only from view of cyber attacks, but also from governments which are not able to make it illegal to own or to transfer, in practice.
Bitcoin is going to be part of our future and it has been for the past 10 years. Hopefully, you will stop blaming it for being wasteful.