> actually HELPS the environment by making renewables more profitable by buying off-peak and surplus energy I've heard this argument before, and it's intriguin

> actually HELPS the environment by making renewables more profitable by buying off-peak and surplus energy I've heard this argument before, and it's intriguing. But I would imagine that storing that energy into batteries, or diverting it to where it might be needed but isn't available, would be a better use of surplus energy. Bitcoin might be competing with that, and that might be bad. [edit] Also, the ASICs used to mine BTC take energy to produce. And what do you do with them once they're obsolete? [edit] Or let's say you've got a factory producing goods. Then wouldn't it make sense to ramp up production during off-peak hours? At least it would be producing actual goods instead of casino tokens.