I still don't understand how this reduces emissions, though. Flare gas is always burned, hence the name. That would make the whole setup neutral, not negative.

I still don't understand how this reduces emissions, though. Flare gas is always burned, hence the name. That would make the whole setup neutral, not negative. Once you include the emissions used to produce the equipment, you're back into net positive carbon production. Are you counting the emissions saved by the same mining operation not consuming an alternative power source? > It only takes one person to say bitcoin is useful for them, and it requires you to ignore them, no matter how many of "thems" there are. It's more of a tragedy of the commons. I don't doubt that some individuals have found an aspect of bitcoin to be helpful to them. People are very public about how useful cryptocurrency can be for evading capital movement restrictions or conducting illegal business activity, but that doesn't automatically mean the whole ecosystem is a net positive to society. Think of nuclear or biological weapons as an analogy: possessing them is useful to state actors or individual terrorists/supervillains, but their existence sure does make the world a worse place.