Author: ZmnSCPxj 2021-05-23 11:26:59
Published on: 2021-05-23T11:26:59+00:00
The author argues that reducing the block reward of Bitcoin is not necessarily bad, as it reduces the incentive to mine and lowers the energy consumption. However, the issue at hand is not energy use, but energy efficiency. Everything important requires energy, and what is needed is to get the most work possible with the least amount of entropy-increase. The negative environmental effects of mining (pollution, temperature rise, etc.) are symptoms of entropy-increase in the local universe. These effects should be properly accounted for and charged to their instigators, and if miners are charged such fines, they will naturally seek sustainable and renewable processes to maximize their profitability in the long run. The author also believes that anyone who pushes for environmentalism but rejects Bitcoin should be treated with suspicion of either hypocrisy or massive ignorance. Bitcoin is an honest currency in accounting for its energy usage and consumption, and the author suspects that most other currencies have far worse efficiencies that happen to be hidden because they are not properly accounted for. What is needed is to enforce that pollution be paid for by those who cause it, and this should be what true environmentalists work towards, rather than rejecting Bitcoin as an environmental disaster.Finally, the author suggests an alternative to outright rejection of transactions that attempt to spend increased block rewards: treating them as no-ops. However, this alternative is inefficient as the "no-op" transactions reduce the available block space for operational transactions.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T22:06:08.867134+00:00