Every so often, someone asks me about bitcoin and I struggle to put a coherent response together. I’m a writer not a speaker, which used to be very frustrating when out at a bar in my younger single days, but that is a story for another time. After responding to a colleague saying “bitcoin is bad for the environment”, with “that’s been disproved”, I got the standard mid curve response of “show me the evidence”. After over 5 years of this particular colleague speaking disparagingly to me with my “crypto bags” every time it was in the news (2022 got rather draining), I thought a slightly more curated response was needed, with the associated evidence.

Having published a number of peer reviewed articles, it is getting to the point with this colleague that I don’t feel the need to interact, particularly as at one point his name was put on one of the papers (mainly for the sake of potentially attending a conference). If he doesn’t read the research of a colleague, but comments on the subject, with a lot of confidence, I’m beginning to wondering whether he realising how disrespectful he’s being (my thick skins is working a charm). Anyways, for those interested, please see below my response with not exhaustive references, focusing primarily on a balance between the evidence that bitcoin is not actually bad for the environment, as well as the impact of bad research on broader perceptions.

I’ve done the academic research in this area, written both peer reviewed research as well as some response articles to research that is really pretty poor, so feel free to have a look at the below, make contributions where you see fit (happy to take them on board) and use it yourself when someone makes a throw away comments about you “playing with your bitcoins”.

While it doesn’t explicitly cover the human rights angle, the recent work by @gladstein couldn’t have been more perfectly timed for my response (he’ll probably say “it’s not peer reviewed”, but comments were received by peers, so it sort of is). Even so, it provides a lot of real-world examples that by owning bitcoin you’re actually indirectly contributing to a lot of good in the world, so in a way, by owning bitcoin, you could view yourself as an “ethical investor” which is what this colleague says he’s into.

“These are some quite interesting pieces (including  https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/14/3/35 and https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c05445) that outline the positive environmental contribution bitcoin mining can have. Saying that, bitcoin mining uses electricity and a lot of it, but this primarily impacts environmental issues when the electricity is generated using hydro carbons, however, bitcoin mining is one of the greenest industries for the amount of renewables used (Cambridge study: sustainable energy rising in Bitcoin mining - News & insight - Cambridge Judge Business School). Bitcoin mining can also use wasted renewable electricity, such as that which takes place when people/power companies/energy users pay to curtail wind farms to prevent over loading of power infrastructure (https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/transmission-network-unavailability-the-quiet-driving-force-behind-rising-curtailment-costs-in-great-britain/). These wind farms don’t generate and are paid to not generate, which increases costs to consumers and increases the use of gas turbine power stations (so requires CO2 emissions even when renewables are in place). The use of bitcoin mining with renewable energy is demonstrated within ERCOT (Texas) to address this situation, by providing a user for the electricity, so both use generated energy but also generating a revenue, rather than the resources being paid not to generate power ( https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63344), while it’s a unique market, however, it does show the system works, and there are other examples where bitcoin mining actually reduces costs to end users (https://www.theblock.co/post/316597/norwegian-bitcoin-mine), given the UK has some of the highest energy costs in the world, any technology that could reduce energy costs is likely a net positive.

It is worth noting that a lot of the anti-bitcoin “research” stems from a combination of a joke paper written to expose the publishing process (Mora et al. 2018 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8 demonstrating how flawed the journal publication process was) that warned that bitcoin mining along would increase global temperatures by 2 degrees (refuted by multiple article responses). In addition to this, work by a Dutch banker/blogger making spurious connections and had driven a lot of anti bitcoin sentiment (https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-energy-consumption-fud-came-digiconomist), which are then wrongly presented by news outlets (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67564205), which don’t make sense and have also been responded to due to their inaccuracies (https://decentrasuze.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web).

Bitcoin is a complex phenomenon, but after some wild times in 2017, bitcoin mining is finding some product/market fit and some environmentalists are moving past the smear campaign that was funded by Greenpeace and originated from a non-bitcoin, crypto coin (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-29/greenpeace-crypto-billionaire-lobby-to-change-bitcoin-s-code ). Recently developments have also meant people are beginning to appreciate that bitcoin is also a means of reducing global methane emissions that at 84 times more potent than CO2 for global warning, so considered a net positive (see Lal et al. paper above but also https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bitcoin-mining-can-help-fight-methane-emissions).

For a little more of a human rights perspective, there is also the work of Alex Gladstein, chief strategy office at the Human Rights Foundation. While the above focusing upon the environmental contributions bitcoin mining is able to make, Alex is also interested in how the free and open nature of bitcoin allows individuals to be empowered outside the state imposed systems of fiat currency, that can trap whole countries into effective debt slavery. This is beginning to explore topics that are potentially outside my own areas of expertise, the underpinning ideas are supported by the logic that also helps to justify why bitcoin makes a positive contribution to discussions on monetary systems. Alex’s recent piece “Why Bitcoin is Freedom Money” explores a range of points and located them within tangible, real world examples (muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/970346/pdf).

Bitcoin is unlike many things I have come across, and learning about it has really opened by eyes to the issues that it may help to address. Rather than disregarding it because someone may have got into it earlier than yourself, my advice is to take a little time to explore it, maybe using some of the sources I’ve included in this message, and if you still think that bitcoin is only for “crypto bros” or drug dealers, you will at least be able to base these opinions upon a foundation of both peer reviewed and real world evidence.“

Thank you for taking the time to read this.