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It's a good question without an obvious answer. Best reasons to think it might be. 1) It's not evenly distributed over 330M residents. It's concentrated in cer

It's a good question without an obvious answer. Best reasons to think it might be. 1) It's not evenly distributed over 330M residents. It's concentrated in certain areas, and we don't have a single nationwide electricity market where supply and demand operate. So it is concentrated in places like Upstate New York and Texas. Spread over few people. 2) It's priced into a daily necessity for people. The poor are the ones with difficulty paying electricity bills, so while $5 or $20 or $50 on an energy bill may not sound like a lot to some people, it depends on your economic situation. So, it's regressive. 3) Crypto mining is a growth sector. The figure is $1B now. Crypto is still growing and we still haven't seen the full effect of bans in China, which are fairly new. True, US power infrastructure is growing... but so is uptake of electric vehicles. (Another keen interest of the professional class.) So we have a question of whether supply can keep up with demand, with the solvency of working class families hanging in the balance while that supply/demand problem works itself out. Maybe it'll be fine. Or maybe crypto warms the planet and hurts poor people in service of a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set.

MrRadar 5y ago
Would anyone who downvoted this comment please write why you did? It seems well-reasoned, factually correct, and does not violate any of the HN guidelines.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  I thought it was a good comment except for the inflammatory zinger at the end: > a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set. For those in silicon valley or wall street this is probably a downvote. And for those who are fans of bitcoin it is definitely a downvote.
  - MrRadar 5y ago
    While I understand that you don't like the way that's phrased, those are definitely two of the main groups currently involved in cryptocurrency. The only other group I can think of that has seen significant uptake of cryptocurrencies (and the only group actually using it as a currency) are people engaged in criminal activities (whether that's evading capital controls, money laundering, drug dealing, or ransomware).
    - helen___keller 5y ago
      To be clear: I upvoted the post for the rest of the content, and I actually agree with sentiment, but I believe a large number of readers would have a gut reaction to immediately downvote when using that sort of inflammatory phrasing. That's the reason HN guidelines say to eschew flamebait: when you use dismissive or charged language, it incites an emotional reaction that is not related to the content of the post, which often results in mass downvoting or derailed discussions
      - MrRadar 5y ago
        I can agree with that.
      - mitchellst 5y ago
        What I probably should have said: "maybe it will be fine, resolving itself with more clean energy and more electric grid capacity in mining-heavy areas, or more clever crypto tech. Or maybe we have a persistent incentives problem where the group that reaps the benefit (Silicon Valley inventors, Wall Street speculators) are distinct from the groups that bear the costs (including people near the welfare line in mining-heavy areas). A persistent incentive problem that isn't solved in relatively short order by general material abundance would be a case for regulation. ... better?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - fleddr 5y ago
    The Silicon Valley / Wall Street part is highly inaccurate, and I'd dare to say plain wrong as it comes to the specific crypto we're talking about: Bitcoin. Bitcoin's invention and surrounding culture comes from cyberpunks. Whom are anti-government, anti-regulation, encourage civil disobedience, and so on. Unsurprisingly, culturally Bitcoin is highly popular with libertarians, which in the US you could qualify as a sub culture of the right wing. As such, it's an almost opposite of SC culture, which is liberal all the way to left wing (largely in name only). As for Wallstreet, they only got in late 2020, and barely so, so it's quite a stretch to state that Bitcoin is a toy for Wallstreet. In reality, these supposed hard lines uniquely found in US politics are soft as butter. Bitcoin isn't made for any group in particular, it is for everyone. It can be used by a greedy hyper capitalist day trader as well as a refugee looking to protect the little they have from inflation or confiscation. Bitcoin doesn't care.

MrRadar 5y ago

Would anyone who downvoted this comment please write why you did? It seems well-reasoned, factually correct, and does not violate any of the HN guidelines.

helen___keller 5y ago
I thought it was a good comment except for the inflammatory zinger at the end: > a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set. For those in silicon valley or wall street this is probably a downvote. And for those who are fans of bitcoin it is definitely a downvote.
- MrRadar 5y ago
  While I understand that you don't like the way that's phrased, those are definitely two of the main groups currently involved in cryptocurrency. The only other group I can think of that has seen significant uptake of cryptocurrencies (and the only group actually using it as a currency) are people engaged in criminal activities (whether that's evading capital controls, money laundering, drug dealing, or ransomware).
  - helen___keller 5y ago
    To be clear: I upvoted the post for the rest of the content, and I actually agree with sentiment, but I believe a large number of readers would have a gut reaction to immediately downvote when using that sort of inflammatory phrasing. That's the reason HN guidelines say to eschew flamebait: when you use dismissive or charged language, it incites an emotional reaction that is not related to the content of the post, which often results in mass downvoting or derailed discussions
    - MrRadar 5y ago
      I can agree with that.
    - mitchellst 5y ago
      What I probably should have said: "maybe it will be fine, resolving itself with more clean energy and more electric grid capacity in mining-heavy areas, or more clever crypto tech. Or maybe we have a persistent incentives problem where the group that reaps the benefit (Silicon Valley inventors, Wall Street speculators) are distinct from the groups that bear the costs (including people near the welfare line in mining-heavy areas). A persistent incentive problem that isn't solved in relatively short order by general material abundance would be a case for regulation. ... better?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fleddr 5y ago
  The Silicon Valley / Wall Street part is highly inaccurate, and I'd dare to say plain wrong as it comes to the specific crypto we're talking about: Bitcoin. Bitcoin's invention and surrounding culture comes from cyberpunks. Whom are anti-government, anti-regulation, encourage civil disobedience, and so on. Unsurprisingly, culturally Bitcoin is highly popular with libertarians, which in the US you could qualify as a sub culture of the right wing. As such, it's an almost opposite of SC culture, which is liberal all the way to left wing (largely in name only). As for Wallstreet, they only got in late 2020, and barely so, so it's quite a stretch to state that Bitcoin is a toy for Wallstreet. In reality, these supposed hard lines uniquely found in US politics are soft as butter. Bitcoin isn't made for any group in particular, it is for everyone. It can be used by a greedy hyper capitalist day trader as well as a refugee looking to protect the little they have from inflation or confiscation. Bitcoin doesn't care.