Can't Support Cryptocurrency

21 Feb 2021 - karit

Think today I have come to the realisation that I can no support any business which offers cryptocurrency as a payment option; be that online/offline, product or service.

Energy Usage

Basically it distils down to the energy use requirements to run these cryptocurrencies. In the last few weeks we have seen that the energy required to run Bitcoin is greater than Argentina. Basically cryptocurrencies turn electricity into “objects” which people value. China has the largest Bitcoin mining pool and only about 26% of China’s electricity production is renewable. So basically Bitcoin is actively pumping out more global warming compounds than some countries do for their industry, commerce, households, etc combined.

I am concerned about climate change. Climate change to me is a greater worry than the privacy and centralisations issues of banks, payment networks, etc which the proponents of cryptocurrency put forward.

As the price of cryptocurrencies increases the maths allows for more energy to be used and still make the same profit. If you don’t add more miners as the price goes up your share of the revenues for mining will decrease, so there is market pressure to pump out more global warming compounds into the environment.

Some people say cryptocurrencies will promote alternative sources of energy. I am yet to see any of this. All the economics I see coming out of cryptocurrency is that they will favour the cheapest form of energy to maximise profit.

Promoting businesses to do silly things

So in the last few days Nvidia has come out with a new chip for the miners. This is intended to mean the more graphics cards for gamers, if you ignore the fact that there is worldwide issues currently with chip production, so now there will be a number of chips in Nvidia’s constrain supply which can only go to miners reducing the chips which can be used by gamers.

This new chip is going to make a large ewaste problem. With normal graphics cards there is a strong secondhand market where some gamers upgrade to the latest cards, they will sell their old cards. This allows the cards to be reused. With the mining cards there is no resale market as they can’t be used for gaming as there are no graphical outputs. Buying an old mining card for mining doesn’t make sense as it is doing less hashes per watt, so the cost benefit doesn’t work out. This means that all these cards will just end up in the rubbish.

With this Nvidia has missed the Reduce and Reuse in the 3Rs of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. So Nvidia is just seeing dollar signs, at the detriment of the environment.

In summary

I can not ethically support any business who accepts cryptocurrency as a payment option. Even if I can pay using alternative methods I will still avoid doing business with that company as it demonstrates that they have care for the environment and actively making the world a worse place.

I encourage other people to also avoid doing businesses which accept cryptocurrencies as a payment option.