Centmo
Joined 5 years ago
Joined 5 years ago
The parameters of the Bitcoin code are changeable (and have changed multiple times since inception) via hard-fork based on the 'voting' of the nodes which verify all new blocks and number in the tens of thousands distributed across the globe. The parameters of the protocol are set such that anyone can run a verification node on only a couple hundred dollars worth of hardware, thereby encouraging decentralization.
https://river.com/learn/can-bitcoins-hard-cap-of-21-million-...
Energy storage is inefficient and expensive, so a new renewable project based around this is less likely to be funded and built than one that can directly monetize the excess. Profit and greed is the incentive structure for much of human society.
Bitcoin has all of the properties we need in a store of value for the base layer of a digital monetary system of the future. The energy expenditure is required to provide the highest level of security and decentralization which is needed for a global reserve asset. Any other system is vulnerable to attack or centralization, which will inevitably succumb to human greed like every fiat system in history.
I was never that interested in monetary policy or the history of money until I found out about Bitcoin and started doing my own research.
Regarding energy use, Bitcoin mining inherently seeks out the lowest cost electricity which turns out to be either stranded energy (not usable for anything else) or renewable (solar, wind, hydro). This is yet another reason to push governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Also, since Bitcoin mining can be done at any time and in any place, it is able to act as the buyer of last resort for renewable projects whose energy production does not line up with grid demand. Having this extra buyer can greatly reduce the payback period for a proposed solar/wind project that otherwise would not have been able to attract the investment to build it.