Bitcoin wastes a lot of energy. I agree. It is basically a mechanism to turn energy into something analogous to money.
However, people do not generally live where there is a lot of potential to generate green energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear all generally work best far away from heavily populated areas (this is not always the case). Additionally, wind + solar are highly variable.
Per unit of energy renewable energy will always be more cost effective than fossil fuels in the long run, but there is a high fixed cost at present.
The more sources that can consume energy in remote areas the more incentives there are to build renewable energy sources.
Thus cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are a net positive for building green energy sources in the long term.
You must log in or # to comment.
#TheyDidntDoTheMath
Did you?
Burden of proof is on you, bro.
I provided my thoughts in unpopular opinions. There’s no burden here at all.
Furthermore, I made an asymptotic limiting behavior argument (e.g., the variable cost is lowest for renewable sources), which quite literally is math https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotic_analysis
The variable cost effect of renewable is quite well known, thus there is no real need to cite things, but here is a recent article https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/22/green-power-now-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-un-reports-show
I am trying to discuss a clearly unpopular opinion in the fediverse; and am opening to changing my views. Your comments have clearly been well liked by the community but do you think they serve to create a positive community atmosphere? Or should we all strive to live in our own echo chambers?
If you make a claim about something then the burden of proof is on you to support it.
You make several assumptions here with zero supporting data, e.g. “people do not generally live where there is a lot of potential to generate green energy”, “The more sources that can consume energy in remote areas the more incentives there are to build renewable energy sources.”.
Building in remote areas destroys the environment during the build and changes it while it’s in use.
Plenty of solar in the desert kills off the local fauna and diverts rainstorm water in such a way that it causes problems.
This is a good point. Do you think wind power has these same externalities? I agree a solar farm can create a large footprint
Yeah wind farms are massive construction projects that reengineer the area.
I know Iceland’s geothermal is a hot spot for mining crypto-currency because it costs absolutely next to nothing. When you’re running massive mining centers off of the earth’s burps there is opportunity to turn a massive profit.
Now, do I think it’s incentivizing a large shift in the production of energy? I’m not sure. Are crypto-bros reinvesting their earnings into renewables research and infrastructure? Or are they buying gas guzzling sports cars and jet setting to all the best parties?
At this point in time, a lot of the “green crypto” feels more like greenwashing than actual ethical development. But who knows, maybe someday that will change?
Energy is nof only used to “create” value, but also to hold it. Even when you reach the limit of 21 something milion bitcoins, every transaction will require a huge amount of energy, and the amount it requires will go up.
