I continue to be a strong believer that Bitcoin has a great fundamental story behind it. I have blogged about it and I continue to observe that the pillars of the fundamental story behind BTC are growing stronger everyday. The current price action still allows me to do my hobby mining with the already outdated Innosillicon T2T 30TH/s, probably not for long now that difficulty is on the rise again.
Elon Musk has delivered on his promise and now we can buy a Tesla vehicle with BTC directly. Tesla is already running its full nodes and Musk is embracing BTC fully and completely. While this is adding to the fundamental story, I was startled to discover that Elon Musk has been receiving criticism that getting involved with Bitcoin will tarnish the environmental nature of Tesla as a company. Wow - I did not consider that from this angle!
Now the most important question becomes is this FUD? Is this the revenge of the BTC haters?
I have heard many times the theory that electric-powered vehicles are not green and environmentally friendly due to the fact they consume carbon produced electricity and their batteries are an environmental disaster - I am on the fence on this argument.
However, the threat of BTC becoming so environmentally unfriendly that it may actually implode on itself has sparked some concern in my soul to be honest.
As of today (March 24th, 2021) the hashrate has risen to 164 EH/s and difficulty in mining is expected to conquer another ATH (https://btc.com/stats/diff), while buying new mining hardware is almost impossible before August of 2021 - so mining will be solid and robust in the coming months!
And today I stumble on the "The Hard Truth About Bitcoin's Energy Consumption"
This article tries to be objective and not side with any party to the argument. However, it does spark a lot of concern of the type I mentioned above.
I agree firmly that:
- There is an inherent positive correlation with BTC's price and mining difficulty and hashrate - hence energy consumption
- There is absolute lack of clarity how much green energy is used in mining operations - still cheap energy is leading and always would be. Green energy is not necessarily cheap
No, I don't agree to comparison with VISA transactions or just limiting comparison to central banks. Money transactions require banks, their branches, their data centers and not only their ATM machines. So at the moment BTC is not yet the single largest environmental threat people are trying to make it appear.
However, I would like to return the fact that there is an inherent positive correlation with BTC's price and mining difficulty and hashrate - hence energy consumption! What will happen with BTC reaching USD 100 000, or USD 1 000 000 (my personal target for 2025-2026). Perhaps I have to reconsider some of that aspects.
Today I cannot reach my own conclusions, however this energy consumption sure rocked the fundamental story I believe in and blog about here on Publish0x.
This for sure is a lot of food for thought and an aspect I will start to actively monitor in the coming months.
