How do you make your money and how do you spend your money?
I think that this is an interesting question when seeing headlines like this:
But, if they are taking donations in fiat currencies, are they doing a background check in how that money is made? The richest man in the world is Jeff Bezos, who runs one of the most valuable companies in the world, Amazon. However, what about their energy usage? Amazon is a gateway for consumer products and they have been very successful in places where they offer same-day and next-day delivery to the door. Is anyone questioning the energy consumption in the production of the products and delivery? I can guarantee it is more than the energy that Bitcoin uses to mine and likely much more than all of the crypto mining for all coins combined. Would Greenpeace turn a Bezos donation away?
The thing with currency is that the dirtiest bit of it all is what it is spent on, not how it is made, as there is a pipeline of consumption where consumers buy from places like Amazon without thought of environmental impact, and Amazon grow on the demand to create more environmental impact. Everything takes energy of some sort to produce, as does everything that needs to be transported, whether it is a high value item or not.
It would be interesting to know what are the dirtiest money-makers on earth, looking at the value of what they make is. How many dollars generated per kilowatt hour spent? Of course, you also have to factor in all other points of contention too, including materials used and supply chain energy consumption too. How much energy is spent by personal computers, TVs and phones daily on activities that generate zero dollars for the user? They do generate money for the suppliers though, which is how they can afford to build the factories and transport the goods all around the world.
The problem is that energy can be used by the one percent to produce goods and services to to the masses, but energy can only be used by the 99% to consume the goods and services. Energy consumption only becomes a problem when it generates wealth for the 99% outside of their controlled systems. You are allowed to buy a car that has a very heavy energy production cost, you are allowed to drive it on oil which not only releases pollution from the energy, but also has a very energy intensive mining process and you are allowed to consume all kinds of other energy intensive resources, as long as you pay for it with a controlled currency.
This has nothing to do with energy consumption and everything to do with maintaining control of wealth. You will often hear the arguments against renewable energy and clean tech to be "it is too expensive" without ever questioning - it isn't expensive at all - it is part of the economy. Just shift the majority of money that goes into non-clean business models into clean tech and voilà, the economy keeps ticking along with a great deal more innovation and a great deal less pollution.
"Money" has nothing to do with it.
The only thing that matters is who is holding that money and how they are currently making their money, as they want people to keep consuming their products so they can make more money.
The world we currently have is a massive energy burner, as most of the money that has ever been made on earth so far has come from industries that have consumed a lot of energy and continue to do so in various ways. To change this, the entire system has to be shifted, but the irony is, it takes energy to do so.
Interestingly, when looking at Bitcoin energy consumption, it has been compared to the consumption of Norway, which also has the highest rate of electric car sales in the world. However, what isn't mentioned, is that Norway also produces 2 million barrels of oil a day, which at the current 64 dollars a barrel price, is 128 million dollars worth a day. Of course, they aren't making 128 million dollars a day from it, as there is an entire industry supply chain required to mine that oil.
But, the world consumes about 97 million barrels of oil a day, which is 6.2 billion dollars generated at the crude oil price. Then there are all of the associated industries and products that refine and use the oil and fossil fuel energy to make and produce all of the other stuff we consume along the consumption path from "farm" to "table" and then into a landfill. The circle of strife.
But none of this is getting talked about, because it breaks the narrative that Bitcoin mining is not worth the energy expenditure, when it is likely one of the most efficient generators of wealth on the market place. However, where it really does get dirty, is in how the Bitcoin is spent, because when it is spent at the same companies that are currently the worlds greatest polluters, it is being used to support the system, not break it.
The reason why suspected institutional investors have been buying the dip is that they don't care about environmental concerns of Bitcoin, because they don't care about environmental concerns EVER.* All they care about is generating wealth and Bitcoin is a way for them to generate a massive amount of wealth because it is efficient and doesn't require all of the supply chain of oil or the drama of war to collect and, the higher the price goes, the more efficient that which has already been mined becomes.
With 18.5 million bitcoin already mined and many of them having been mined on people's personal computers at low energy cost, the stock-to-flow model looks like it is selling Bitcoin short in terms of future value. When Bitcoin hits a million, it will be the greenest wealth that has ever been generated on earth by far and, the most distributed amongst the global population from any industry.
But hey, who cares about the future.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]