The energy consumption of Bitcoin isn't new news. What continues to disappoint me, however, is how many people immediately jump to its defense with arguments based on the value it provides, as if that offset its cost.
What gets neglected is that the Bitcoin algorithm is inherently wasteful. By its very design, it results in an insane amount of duplicated, pointless computation.
The question isn't whether something like Bitcoin can provide any value. The question is whether we have better options. And the answer is: we do, by far. From proof-of-stake (like Ethereum is moving towards) or trust-based models (like Stellar), technologies exist that grant almost all the benefits of Bitcoin at tiny fraction of the environmental (and monetary!) cost.
I give Bitcoin credit for being an interesting "first answer" to an extremely hard problem. But it is in no way something that we should be doubling down on.
What gets neglected is that the Bitcoin algorithm is inherently wasteful. By its very design, it results in an insane amount of duplicated, pointless computation.
The question isn't whether something like Bitcoin can provide any value. The question is whether we have better options. And the answer is: we do, by far. From proof-of-stake (like Ethereum is moving towards) or trust-based models (like Stellar), technologies exist that grant almost all the benefits of Bitcoin at tiny fraction of the environmental (and monetary!) cost.
I give Bitcoin credit for being an interesting "first answer" to an extremely hard problem. But it is in no way something that we should be doubling down on.