Provided it has a real use (which it marginally has for some people but not broadly, currently) and isn’t just burning energy for the sake of it (like it currently mostly is), that would work.
However, if some of this energy adds itself to the peak consumption, then it also increases the total need for power production. Do we have numbers to back up that Bitcoin is/will be mined mainly during hours of low energy consumption/heavy production and not just cluster up where energy is cheap as a whole and mined broadly?
I have a hard time picturing mining being done evenly on the planet given the current wide disparities in quality and cost of life. If Bitcoin is a universal mean of buying, or a store of value, it would make sense to produce it where it’s cheap and spend it where we want it (incidentally, a side effect of a world running on the Bitcoin standard would be that it would probably require to lower the discrepencies in the levels of quality of life from place to place).
It may be good for the environment but I see it as wealth concentration and a de-incentive for creativity. It comes down to personal views but I want the people around me and myself to have to make productive use of their wealth to keep atop of the pyramid and not to be able to sit idly by and have it increase anyway on a relative to others level just because they have more of it to start with (we can get into how the current system already allows for that but I don’t think Bitcoin is a solution. A deflationary currency compounds the problem as I see it).
I’m granting you that, and it is a significant advantage to be taken into account. Bitcoin relies on connectivity, however, so remote/poor areas where part of the unbanked people are would need big investments in infrastructure in order to get to participate in a Bitcoin economy. Do MicroStrategy and other Bitcoin maximizers make it part of their mission to bring decent speed and affordable internet and electricity everywhere on the planet? (As an aside, the “Bitcoin smoothing electricity consumption” theory doesn’t work between unconnected grids so the off-grid remote miner powered by solar pannels wouldn’t help the situation.)
It’s complex.
In western countries its almost entirely green energy.
But there are negative examples like Kazakhstan, which give subsidy to coal energy. So there it’s mined with fossil fuels…
The peak consumption, i dont think there are studies yet, but some examples like this
I can recommand here Daniel Batten (on x DSBatten, website https://batcoinz.com/). He 's environmentalist and gives scientific explanations on Bitcoins impact.
This is the discussion Keynes vs Austrian economists. Agree, personal view.
That’s not entirely true. You can participate in Bitcoin economy even with a 5usd dumb phone via text messages. Most of the unbanked have btw. a phone, but have no Id card, are not registred or are seen as dissidents.
We are also talking about Westerners where you can be jailed for a tweet (see UK recent news) and the bank account gets blocked just because of some social media posts (well, it’s politically intended, but imho wrong).
Like @stojano already mentioned you are mixing up two concepts. To run the network you need a lot of electricity usage and somewhat decent internet usage (it’s actually not a lot).
To USE the network you just need a stupid phone and comically slow internet. That’s already a non-issue in most parts of the world. Most people are unbanked because of legal reasons not because of technological reasons. In that sense Bitcoin is indeed a solution because technically you don’t even have to be human to use Bitcoin.
Regarding the energy usage the way I phrase it is that Bitcoin provides a minimum global demand/price on electricity. This means that if even if you are on the moon, as long as you have internet and electricity you can sell it completely wirelessly and whenever you want.
This has advantages and disadvantages. A disadvantage is that now some nations are incentivized to burn cheap coal or oil because they can sell the energy they produce from it and that’s polluting. An advantage is that it makes it feasible (I.e. economically viable) for many renewables projects to exist.
I think if you would have done the same poll for following, the response would be similar
Gold
Antiques & art
Luxury goods
I believe because all of these are non-cash flow assets and they always need someone else to buy them from you to make any return. People on this forum are more keen on cash flows in my view.
Perhaps that’s the reason.
In addition, I think BTC is very popular amongst folks who don’t like central organisations like Banks, governments, centralisation etc. Not sure if this forum has lot of people in that segment.
But I would have a same question for you.
You are all in on BTC. Is that a huge risk as well?
From my perspective. I want to say the following
even if BTC will become the future digital gold. I think the times of someone becoming a millionaire (from nothing) using BTC are long gone. The average future returns would continue to drive down because of law of large numbers.
if I compare the history of Gold vs equities. Equities have outperformed over long periods of time. So I wouldn’t expect anything different from BTC too.
Yes it is. I’m taking it and I’m full aware of it. I was once poor, so maybe this doesn’t scare me to be it again. I really think, bitcoin is the best shot we (as world) got for a better future.
It’s a nice side-effect to become a millionaire etc. imho, BTC is about not losing any value risk-free (your salary, your savings). In the long run, I’m pretty sure it will keep this promise. Where inflation is guaranteed to cut your savings in half within 35 years (or so). But this is the matter of personal views as @Wolverine said (fight Keynes vs Hayek).
On the other side, with equities you are forced to take a risk to keep the value of your savings. Plus, I don’t want to have any military-industrial-complex stocks in my portfolio… but if you want to keep it with the index performance, you have to.
Just want to say this is a great discussion - I like seeing the different points of views.
Also –
COVID indicated that BTC is not entirely “uncorrelated” to the equity market (same with gold). The fast recovery was basically because “money printer go burrrrr…” and all that money ended up back in assets (housing, equities, btc…).
Governments are broke, and middle class is getting eroded (wage stagnation and value of savings eaten by inflation), and the prices of every day goods will remain at this new norm even as inflation has subsided.
BTC has been sort of been through financial crises. It’s still new, and demand has on average been increasing - hence the upward long term trend. Many people got REKT along the way, especially with the volatility (fair share of crypto winters since inception), as well and grifters/scammers/and overleveraged exchanges where people lose everything. Do you mean like BTC specific “black swans”? I can think of a few:
Sastoshi’s wallet becomes active (creates FUD)
A group of Governments together decide to implement a high wealth tax on crypto assets. Even if you say, well then I just move to another country. Not everyone wants to leave their family, friends, lifestyle.
Governments force a CBDC (some people thing this might help BTC, others hinder it).
…
Also, it’s guaranteed that Coins will continue to end up in limbo. There is no way to stop that from happening entirely. It may not make sense to self-custody 100% of your coins (even if that is the “purist” mentality) because of many risks. What if you died or become disabled, are you going to make sure that x, y, z people have your info so it can be transferred to your heirs? I’m sure many peoples parents can’t remember a password let alone safe-guard all their wealth without some sort of custodian.
Personally I like more regulation because at least the rules are known, and as problems come up, I hope there will be positive adaptations. No system will ever be perfect.
Personally I think the ideal amount of BTC in a portfolio is somewhere > 0% and less than 5%.
There are many things we can invest in that have value and will continue to have value. I personally do not like Saylor and think of him more as a grifter than the all-knowing Big Daddy Bitcoin.
I admire your conviction - there is no way I could stomach 100% BTC.
I don’t think that’s a big problem. Even if we know the dollar gets absolutely smashed over the long term, a lot of societal progress has been made with the fiat system as it is (I’m not a fan of how it is run in general… but that’s another discussion).
More importantly, how many people keep 100’000.00+ just sitting around collecting 0.6% at the swiss banks? Normally this money is invested, especially by anyone in this forum. So savings won’t be cut in 1/2 in 35 years. Cash is meant as a means for spending/investing not hoarding - and this spurs advancements.
Equities, home ownership, BTC all have “risks” for holding it (and so does Fiat)… so it’s really choose your own adventure in terms of “holding value” / returns. The only really clear thing to me is that you don’t want to hold a lot of Fiat over a long period of time, but it is still useful.
If some major non-crypto companies started paying salaries in BTC (even partially), I could be convinced to up my portfolio allocation
I disagree. A very good book “The Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous was mentioned here several times. I recommend it.
The system has worked for few. You are reading these posts in a forum where the members belong to a maybe 10% elite in Switzerland, and <1% in the world. Went well for us (I count me into that group). But after spending 4 weeks in France this summer and talking to some people I met, I heard that’s not the case for everyone. I don’t think there would be a discussion today about Bitcoin if everything were fine with the status quo today.
I never understood those at that time, and I still don’t really understand how they still hold some value. But I’m also not a Rolex enthusiast either (and even that one I can better understand, it can be visible (status).
I hear you (I’ll add that to my reading/listening list; thanks!).
My stance isn’t about defending the fiat system as ideal. I recognize its practicality and the progress it has enabled despite its flaws (it has many). I agree that many people suffer under the current system; I’m not (yet) convinced BTC is the silver bullet.
I’m generalizing, but most crypto bros are in it to make a buck and “freedom”, not some altruistic way of fixing the government/society.
BTC might work well for those of us fortunate enough to allocate resources toward it, but that doesn’t directly address the broader systemic issues affecting most people today. Like, there is only so much BTC being produced, and it is finite. If those who can’t afford it on the same scale as us (ex. citizens holding Venezuelan bolivar / Argentine peso / etc…) — won’t they be left behind, and will there still be a class war? Same goes for those Swiss who do not have any extra savings and are living paycheck-to-paycheck (like the poor guy who only made a 100% return because of expensive “waterdrop” from the other forum post here).
I think what you are referring to is the loss of the middle class — I personally think the only way to get to a more balanced wealth distribution is through taxation (progressive wealth taxes and likely more aggressive than they currently are in Switzerland, at least). My friends in other countries are surprised that Switzerland even has wealth taxes.
The only way all of that happens is if we vote to elect leaders that make it their mission to do so; but many are cynical with the illusion of choice and the money in politics
(like in the USA, where it’s essentially a 2-party system; I was sort of baffled the choices put out were between Trump and Biden initially).
And on that note it would be very interesting if blockchain tech could make for transparent voting records while still maintaining a voter’s privacy (given all the voter fraud claims). Guess it needs to be fire-tested.
Could have even been useful in the Gore vs. Bush election too…
I gave up on politics, politicians and policies. My vote and political statement is only expressed in the holding of Bitcoin. Everything will evolve as it has to be.
I don’t think we can say that it’s been through a crisis like the 2008 one. I’m talking about such global crises, where investors try to limit their losses and get out of the riskiest assets. My understanding of the current hype is that it’s still mostly speculation and nobody uses BTC as a store of value (unlike gold or maybe the Swiss frank) as its volatility prevents that. So I’d expect the money to flee it during the next global crisis, more so than e.g. stocks.
Most of us are probably there indirectly already because of indexes including companies such as MSTR (I think it’s in VT).
I would argue COVID crash was similar to 2008. Plenty of people panic sold equities during COVID “to limit their losses”. Many others who were leveraged (in equities) where their brokers margin called their positions. BTC acted like a risk asset, and GOLD did as well (even if people sometimes think of them as a hedge to stock crashes).
I do agree with you that it’s still mostly speculation, which is why I don’t mind putting a small sized bet on it and seeing what happens.
That is exactly what already happened in the past 2 major drawdowns:
S&P COVID drawdown = -36%
BTC COVID drawdown = -66%
S&P 2022 drawdown = -27%
BTC 2022 drawdown = -77%
Again, to me this means they are correlated. It’s all about liquidity.
True - It’s 0.03% of the fund ($300 for every $1M in VT), negligible (and not your keys)
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