Bitcoin wastes a lot of energy. I agree. It is basically a mechanism to turn energy into something analogous to money.

However, people do not generally live where there is a lot of potential to generate green energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear all generally work best far away from heavily populated areas (this is not always the case). Additionally, wind + solar are highly variable.

Per unit of energy renewable energy will always be more cost effective than fossil fuels in the long run, but there is a high fixed cost at present.

The more sources that can consume energy in remote areas the more incentives there are to build renewable energy sources.

Thus cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are a net positive for building green energy sources in the long term.

Bitcoin wastes a lot of energy. I agree. It is basically a mechanism to turn energy into something analogous to money.

However, people do not generally live where there is a lot of potential to generate green energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear all generally work best far away from heavily populated areas (this is not always the case). Additionally, wind + solar are highly variable.

Per unit of energy renewable energy will always be more cost effective than fossil fuels in the long run, but there is a high fixed cost at present.

The more sources that can consume energy in remote areas the more incentives there are to build renewable energy sources.

Thus cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are a net positive for building green energy sources in the long term.

It also provides the ability for the grid to instantly shed load effectively bringing new capacity online instantly. It effectively operates as a battery making unreliable renewables more viable on the grid.

Well that was an interesting word salad. Care to elaborate?

Alright, I'll skip right past the energy consumption issue of crypto and AI and the like..

Riddle me this...

If the future is supposed to be an entirely digital world, where only adults can have accounts (18 or 21 years old or whatever), then 5 year olds won't even have the right to go buy a simple candy bar, and high school students won't have any financial experience to even get started in life after they graduate.

So what future is there in crypto?

Web3 is Going Just Great

A timeline recording only some of the many disasters happening in crypto, decentralized finance, NFTs, and other blockchain-based projects.

(www.web3isgoinggreat.com)

Personal opinion, crypto is nothing but scammer garbage.

Producing electricity is difficult, turning on and off generators is slow, if demand dips rapidly then that energy has to go SOMEWHERE. Sometimes this is called load shedding.

So if you have a low priority bitcoin farm that can consume lots of load - you can use it to keep the generation / demand curve flat. This makes it easier to turn off and on generators. This also creates a greater economic incentive to make more stable green energy since there is consistent demand.

where only adults can have accounts (18 or 21 years old or whatever), then 5 year olds won’t even have the right to go buy a simple candy bar, and high school students won’t have any financial experience to even get started in life after they graduate.

That's like saying only adults are allowed to use money. In a world with digital money, of course children will have to be able to use digital money.

Producing electricity is difficult, turning on and off generators is slow, if demand dips rapidly then that energy has to go SOMEWHERE. Sometimes this is called load shedding.

So if you have a low priority bitcoin farm that can consume lots of load - you can use it to keep the generation / demand curve flat. This makes it easier to turn off and on generators. This also creates a greater economic incentive to make more stable green energy since there is consistent demand.

So, your logic is that generating more energy demand will create more incentive for green energy..?

Have you ever worked for an oil company, even as a simple oil change pit worker?

Them oil companies couldn't give a flying fuck less about the environment, and they actively fight against green energy.

Disclaimer: I only worked for an oil company for about 5 months, back in 2005, and I do not approve of big oil trying to smother green energy technology.

Regardless, that's unfortunately how shit still works.

Not just this but if supply dips or demand goes up rapidly then the miners can stop mining making more energy available to the grid. Funny enough in the us (with how their minute by minute energy auctions) most crypto miners make more money off selling the energy they bought at a low preorder rate at the start of the day back to the grid in the minute by minute rate.

I did the math the other day in some cases being a battery on the grid is actually more profitable than being a crypto miner. That's assuming u are optimising for roi and don't already have mining resources.

Show me evidence that children are allowed to use crypto, or that they can even remember enough of the alphabet to remember their password..