Good Morning Everyone,
A slew of energy FUD hit the internet this morning courtesy of a greenpeace US twitter account claiming that Bitcoin specifically is driving climate devastation and includes a hashtag “change the code” linked to a marketing campaign advocating bitcoin to adopt a less energy intensive consensus mechanism.
They have created a website at the domain cleanupbitcoin.com. The first line of text on the main-page reads “you’ve heard bitcoin fuels the climate crisis” which is so predatory as it is intentionally preying on previously held biases of those that may actually take it seriously, and confirm their previously held concern or bias. They are preying on what is known as confirmation bias.
The site highlights four "““facts””” about bitcoin:
* “Recent estimates show Bitcoin uses more electricity than all of Sweden.”
* “Bitcoin alone could help warm the planet more than 2 degrees.”
* “Bitcoin is resurrecting fossil fuels.”
* “A software code change could reduce Bitcoin’s energy use by 99.9%.”
The marketing campaign, which is exactly that, is funded by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen who said he provided $5m to fund “the endeavour” and is still being investigated by the SEC in relation to the sale of unregistered securities relating to ripple and XRP.
For anyone that is new here i would refer you to the following articles to get you up to speed incase any of the above “facts” have you concerned about whether bitcoin is going to melt the planet.
» Bitcoin Needs To Use More Energy
» Proof-of-Work Is Not Just Useful - It's Essential
» Is Bitcoin Worth The Energy 1/2 & Is Bitcoin Worth The Energy 2/2
What i find far more interesting is the incredible individuals within the bitcoin community that are so quick to correct nonsensical and disingenuous claims, and provide verifiable data to the contrary to help level the playing field within the marketplace of information and ideas.
For most people that have no understanding of bitcoin, and lack the time, intention or curiosity to investigate further they are psychologically vulnerable to these kinds of marketing campaigns so the critical role the community plays cannot be over-stated and the change in dynamic compared with that of legacy media is also a significant contributing factor.
Looking at the comments from Greenpeace’s tweet is a thing of glory. I won’t read through them individually but i will include a few below so you can see for yourself.
The thing to remember here, is that bitcoin is not a company with a CEO at the top of a traditional hierarchical power structure. No single entity can actually just decide to change the code, as this marketing scam infers is possible. This only adds to the comedy of it. It could be a precursor however to more combative government measures and to attack the identity, for use of a better word, of bitcoin within the town square of ideas to enable such attacks - and with how easily most people have demonstrated their ability to parrot information mindlessly these days that the news told them is true, it is not difficult to see this happening. In my estimation this is the most likely intent for this campaign, but i can only speculate.
The beautiful thing about bitcoin, is that if Chris Larsen and his band of hysterics truly believe their own propaganda, they are more than welcome to fork the bitcoin codebase, and run their own network. Anyone that believes in this vision is welcome to abandon bitcoin and join their new PoS network. This story has already been told in the blocksize wars, but if some exec wants to try again I invite them to try. It would only serve as another powerful demonstration of the beauty of bitcoin and further strengthen the worlds most sophisticated monetary network.
My node however will be doing no such thing, and I wish anyone dumb enough to waste $5m on this endeavour all the best for the future.
Pomp nailed it with this tweet.
Absolutely hilarious!
Proof-of-work is one of the core fundamental innovations in bitcoin, and critical in enabling digital scarcity. Without it bitcoin does not exist.As long as people still fail to understand this, it offers an insane edge to the rest of us that do.
What a time to be alive.
My bitcoin can remain in cold storage longer than Chris Larsen’s marketing scam can remain relevant.
Wishing you all well. Hope you have a great day, and i will talk to everyone tomorrow.
AK
