The price of Bitcoin is down approximately 50 per cent, the mainstream media has changed their narrative from “invest every penny you have in NFTs” to “Bitcoin is an energy hog that eats babies”.
It seems many news outlets around the world do very little research before posting an article, instead recycling a newswire which they all copy and paste because ultimately news is not about news, it is about clicks on a web page to gain advertising revenue.
During the first crash that Bitcoin recently had from $64,000 to $29,000, every single day for two weeks we were bombarded by negative stories about Elon Musk and Tesla no longer accepting Bitcoin among many things.
But are electric cars really saving the world? No, of course not: Lithium is mined in poor countries, is shipped around the world on huge container ships and goes through a very power intensive process to be converted into batteries that power cars made exclusively out of fossil fuels and a finite supply of raw materials dug out of the earth.
So the idea that Bitcoin is somehow single-handedly the worst thing to happen to the earth all of a sudden is hilarious given that I am writing this article on a computer made from various mined metals and oil-based plastics.
Bitcoin miners, if plugged into the national grid, would also be bad for the environment given that the national grid is comprised of 46.5 per cent fossil fuels – and that is not the full picture because the UK also imports energy from overseas.
So how does this relate to Bitcoin? Well, the banking industry runs 100 per cent off of the national grid and fossil fuels; ATMs, commuting employees, even just keeping the lights on in the huge glass tower blocks in Canary Wharf use a tremendous and incalculable amount of energy.
113.89 Twh per year is the exact amount of energy used by the Bitcoin network over the previous 12 months – less than half the amount of energy used by the banking system.
Many of the world’s Bitcoin mines are located in cold areas of the world next to rivers, geysers, anywhere that has a natural energy source.
The banking industry gets approximately 90 per cent of its energy from non renewable sources and therefore impacts the world nearly ten times more than Bitcoin, sucking approximately 234 Twh per year from non renewable energy sources.
Bitcoin provides a lifeline to people in countries that have no economic infrastructure.
So what comes next for Bitcoin? I imagine society will take a long time to understand exactly how much impact Bitcoin is having on the world with entire nations beginning to adopt it as a national currency to scare away the criminals within their system.
This is a line parroted by governments and the media to scare people away from Bitcoin so that everyone can continue as normal without having to change; governments can still take cash bribes and people will continue to get shafted.
It is currently the victim of false narratives perpetuated by desperate governments trying to get people to hold onto the ever depreciating currency they keep printing more and more of at an increasing pace.