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Comment by andreaorru | Hacker News Reader

The energy argument has been debunked over and over again.

I recommend you read this thread by Yassine Elmanjdra (analyst at ARK Invest): https://twitter.com/yassineARK/status/1360343382556483587?s=...

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The tweets you linked to link to another source [0], and are mostly paraphrased from that source, which makes the following argument:

"Does Bitcoin justify its energy usage? Does it add enough value? So far, the market says it does."

That doesn't "debunk" any argument about energy use, it only tries to justify it.

[0] https://www.lynalden.com/misconceptions-about-bitcoin/

Disingenuous. That's not the only argument that is being presented.

There's some muddled thinking going on there. The source doesn't make the argument that Bitcoin isn't energy intensive. If that's an issue for you, you should re-evaluate your views on Bitcoin, but denying it doesn't change the fact.

Otherwise we're just arguing that "water isn't wet" and what the definition of "is" is.

I'm perplexed. I don't think we're looking at the same content. Perhaps you haven't read the entire thread but just the first 6 tweets?

This "debunk" is bunk in at of itself - have you actually looked at the presented arguments? They are ridiculous and make no sense whatsoever (e.g. comparing PoW with literal gold mining - as if gold were a currency...).

Of course, I've read everything, including the article by Nic Carter [1] (which I highly recommend) and all his related articles on the subject.

The comparison with gold mining is quite apt actually - one of the use cases for Bitcoin is to act as a store of value and hedge against inflation, precisely like gold.

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-co...

> The comparison with gold mining is quite apt actually - one of the use cases for Bitcoin is to act as a store of value and hedge against inflation, precisely like gold.

Ahem, the primary use of gold is jewellery, not a hedge value against inflation. That's where the vast majority of all mined gold ends up (plus some in electronics and medical applications).

That's not entirely correct. Less than half of the demand for gold is for jewellery, and only a tiny percentage is used for technology. Almost half of it is held in vaults to act as a store of value. [0]

Regardless of what the percentages are, the price of gold is mostly determined by speculation. It varies wildly during periods of economic uncertainty. Arguably, not because there's more or less demand for its industrial use cases, but precisely for the reason I mentioned: a big part of its value derives from being perceived as a safe haven for storing wealth and as a hedge against inflation.

Bitcoin positions itself as a direct competitor in that sense. Its main narrative in the past few years has been "digital gold" or "gold 2.0". It has some of the same properties of gold (scarce, difficult to produce) and some better ones (fast and easy to transfer, easily auditable, impossible to steal or confiscate).

I don't think Bitcoin is suited to be used as a currency to i.e. buy coffee. But it doesn't have to do that in order to succeed. Stablecoins are a better tool for that use case.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

I don't think he understands the concept of efficiency. More efficient means doing the same thing at a lower cost. What same thing does bitcoin do at a lower cost compared to what?

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