3 ms·

What I'd really like to see is a discussion of how Bitcoin energy use compares with the current banking system. Many people criticize Bitcoin in a vacuum - so i

What I'd really like to see is a discussion of how Bitcoin energy use compares with the current banking system. Many people criticize Bitcoin in a vacuum - so it's easy to get behind those arguments. But I'd rather talk about whether or not Bitcoin is worthwhile progress or not. The current banking system might not be as wasteful from an energy usage perspective - but might have other environmental costs - plastic, paper printing, transportation costs. How do those compare? And is Bitcoin progress - in the sense that it eliminates the state from printing and controlling the currency? If not, then what would progress look like?

toyg 6y ago
Those are very good questions, but nobody wants to touch them because they are inherently political and somewhat destabilising. Personally, I don’t think the absence of well-regulated banks and central banks under a degree of democratic oversight would be progress; but there is some value in making the underground economy somewhat structured and relatively transparent. It’s a bit like the Japanese yakuza: everyone knows it exists, members are very visible, the state tolerates it as long as it stays under certain limits, and so on. This is not perfect but it’s a better and more desirable situation than full-out war like in Mexico, for example. Similarly, we currently have little or no visibility of dirty money; we know it’s pumped in our “clean” banking systems but we don’t really know where, we’re in a constant struggle to uproot it before it taints the rest. Wouldn’t it be better to keep all that in its own dedicated system? Btc can be that.