John Mills about 150 years ago put it very well: As a rule. Panics do not destroy Capital ; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously dest

John Mills about 150 years ago put it very well: As a rule. Panics do not destroy Capital ; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works. His full comments can be found at https://archive.org/stream/oncreditcyclesor00manc/oncreditcyclesor00manc_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/oncreditcyclesor00manc/oncreditcy.... I cannot think of anything as hopelessly unproductive as what has been spent on cryptocurrency. To name just one example, as https://www.nrdc.org/stories/crypto-has-climate-problem https://www.nrdc.org/stories/crypto-has-climate-problem points out, the electricity used for mining bitcoin is on par with that used by Sweden. And all of this energy goes to produce...what?