Lessons From Reason’s “The Fake Environmentalist Attack on Bitcoin” Mini-Doc
November 18 2021 - 10:09PM
NEWSBTC
Phenomenal piece by Reason Magazine. We at NewsBTC have been
countering the Bitcoin is bad for the environment narrative for a
while now. Now, we have a new tool. A short and sweet documentary
that rests on a devastating premise. “Such environmentalist attacks
on bitcoin are best understood as a strategy by economic, media,
and political elites to undermine a powerful new form of money that
they can’t control.” Boom! That’s exactly what’s happening. Related
Reading | Bitcoin Mining Vs. The World: BTC Leads Sustainable
Energy Let’s explore the idea further, but first, let’s let Reason
Magazine define who they are and what they stand for: “Reason is
the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a
libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you
won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.”
You’ve been warned. This is the perspective you’ll get from this
article and from “The Fake Environmentalist Attack on Bitcoin”
Mini-Doc: The mini-documentary starts with the filthy propaganda
the state usually serves: “Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are
terrible for the environment,” declares Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.). “It’s an extremely inefficient way of conducting
transactions,” pronounces former Federal Reserve Chair and current
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “It’s a way to both hide dirty
money and destroy the environment at the same time,” says Daily
Show host Trevor Noah. Reason Magazine Summarizes The Government’s
Perspective Then, Elizabeth Warren brings up the most ridiculously
flamboyant stat ever uttered. According to the Senator, a single
Bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of energy that an average
house uses in 53 days. WHAT? Couldn’t these government people
control themselves and provide a more plausible number? Do people
actually believe these made-up stats? Apparently, they do, as the
Discord story proves. “Discord’s founder and CEO Jason Citron
hinted at possible integration with the Ethereum ecosystem, with
NFTs, and with the incoming Web3. And all hell broke loose. Discord
fanatics spammed Citron’s replies and canceled their subscriptions
to their Nitro premium service. Discord’s own employees took to
social media to express their discomfort. Video game culture
influencers rallied the masses and gathered hundreds of Likes and
Retweets. What were their reasons? Environmental concerns.” Back to
Reason’s documentary, Bitcoin spokesperson Nic Carter dismantles
the government’s techniques. They establish an exaggerated per
transaction cost, and then “extrapolate Bitcoin’s transactional
load to hundreds of billions per year.” They’re not dumb, they know
that “The electricity consumed by mining isn’t used to power
individual transactions.” However, the average citizen doesn’t. Nic
Carter closes with, “Bitcoin’s transactions and Bitcoin’s energy
use are not really correlated.” They aren’t. Bitcoin produces one
block full of transactions every ten minutes on average. If we
reduced the mining to only one machine, Bitcoin would still produce
the same amount of blocks in the same amount of minutes. BTC
price chart for 11/19/2021 on Capital.com | Source: BTC/USD on
TradingView.com The Media Claims Are Outlandish, To Say The Least
The mini-documentary’s host is Nick Gillespie, Reason’s Editor At
Large. He admits “The energy used by Bitcoin mining has increased
significantly and it will continue to grow, but the media claims
are outlandish.” As an example, he offers this ridiculous 2017
Newsweek article titled “Bitcoin Mining on Track to Consume All of
the World’s Energy by 2020.” As you might suspect, Newsweek’s
prediction didn’t come true. Then, it’s time for some real stats.
According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Bitcoin
consumes “just over a hundred terawatt-hours per year.” That’s
117.02, to be exact. That’s on the high end of the spectrum of Nick
Hansen’s estimations. If the network uses 14.2 Gigawatts per hour,
that would amount to 124 terawatt-hours per year. However, “most
likely, the Bitcoin network is between 4.2 and 14.2 Gigawatts.” So,
it would be considerably less by Hansen’s stats. Pick the number
you trust the most, it’s a worthy investment considering everything
Bitcoin brings to the world. Critics Tend To Ignore These Facts
Reason defines mining as”the process through which a global network
of computers maintains the bitcoin network through computation.
Though energy-intensive, this process is what makes bitcoin a truly
decentralized monetary system.” And that’s a fact. Proof-Of-Work is
essential to decentralization. There is no alternative. A little
later, Reason’s Nick Gillespie hits us with another home run, “the
work being carried out by this global computer network is what
allows Bitcoin to be controlled by mathematical rules instead of
human actors vulnerable to government or corporate control.” Then,
the documentary presents another crucial fact, “Miners are
incentivized to use energy that would otherwise go to waste.” The
Human Rights Foundation’s Alex Gladstein puts it in another way,
“Bitcoin miners need energy that nobody else wants.” Why? Because
it’s cheaper. The incentives are clear as day. After that, Reason
brings out the ace under Bitcoin’s sleeve, “In the Western United
States, mobile Bitcoin miners are already running on electricity
derived from unused natural gas from oil wells that can’t be
captured because there are no pipelines to carry it.” Luckily for
the government, Reason doesn’t bring up everything Bitcoin mining
is doing for the Navajo Nation. Reason Closes It Off With Even More
Stats In a questionable move, Reason quotes the Bitcoin
Mining Council controversial report. That one puts Bitcoin’s
sustainable energy use at around 56%. Let’s quote NewsBTC’s report
on that number. “The good news is, there’s data to show that
Bitcoin’s “mining electricity mix increased to 56% sustainable in
Q2 2021.” Is that data valid? That’s another question altogether.
The Bitcoin Mining Council elaborates on the results: The results
of this survey show that the members of the BMC and participants in
the survey are currently utilizing electricity with a 67%
sustainable power mix.” Related Reading | Power Ledger Blockchain
Firm Signs Deal with Japanese Green Energy Supplier We can say that
because, here at NewsBTC, we’re partial to Bitcoin. Was it a good
idea for Reason to use it? Maybe not, but notice they used the
conservative 56% figure and not the aspirational 67% one. The
magazine knows what it’s doing. That’s why they brought back Nic
Carter to close the documentary, “Bitcoin is a vote of no
confidence in the monetary and financial system that exists today.”
That’s exactly what it is. Among other things. Featured Image:
Screenshot from the documentary | Charts by TradingView
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