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Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

I’d be surprised if Apple didn’t move further into fintech than Apple Pay and Apple Card. Buy one of the online banks, one of the instalment payment providers etc, offer finance solutions that ever so slightly shorten upgrade cycles on the hardware side.

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I can imagine them partnering with a cryptocurrency exchange to provide cryptocurrency wallet support in Apple Wallet.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but Apple is a company that cares a great deal about the environmental valence of their products. Obviously CSR is a bit of a shell game no matter who does it, but Apple seems to take it seriously, and they seem to have made pretty real strides in reducing both operations and manufacturing footprint. Moreover, as compared to many electronic manufacturers, they seem more willing in general to actually impose environmental responsibilities on suppliers, and subcontractors, and further downstream. One example of this is that they build or buy huge amounts of renewable power, and they work with suppliers who don't use renewable power to switch.

Without getting into the debate about the true environmental impact of cryptocurrency, we can all agree that cryptocurrency has an external appearance of being environmentally bad. Maybe that's unfair, maybe it's not. But if Apple announces meaningful cryptocurrency integration, it is going to expose them to that debate in a way that superficially will seem to cut against their values.

As a result, I do not expect them to do so. That's not to say they'll block cryptocurrency efforts by third parties, just that I do not think they're ever going to do anything themselves or trumpet those kinds of connections.

Small disclosure note: I worked in an academic lab where coworkers, one of whom later a coauthor of mine in an unrelated product, were hired by Apple to do some work on conflict minerals, mineral sourcing in their supply chain, and Dodd-Frank's conflict mineral oversight provisions. I was not involved in the project personally and it ended several years ago, but obviously it gave me a bit of exposure to Apple's efforts that no doubt shapes my perception here.

> we can all agree that cryptocurrency has an external appearance of being environmentally bad.

But ARE all cryptocurrencies environmentally bad? Do you have evidence for both claims?

Can you name any one that isn't? Even "different" ones like Chia that don't use proof of work have bad externalities ( it eats hard drives).

If one day Ethereum moves to proof of stake, that might change, but as of today there isn't a single one that's even remotely popular which doesn't do serious environmental damage.

Normally, the burden of proof is on whoever made the original claim [0] to substantiate it with credible links or evidence; you can do it for them if you want.

However, The claim that 'every single cryptocurrency' is bad for the environment regardless of popularity is still unsubstantiated.

I am only asking for relevant sources rather than attempts to avoid giving out any relevant sources by answering a question with another question.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29065284

Avalanche

I had hoped that putting a part in my post saying that I was talking about optics -- not the underlying truth -- would have dissuaded people from trying to engage me on the truth of the claim. I apologize only for my naivety in that respect.

I have already acknowledged that but additionally requested on your side for such evidence to support your claim even if assumptions are involved. It still requires sources regardless, otherwise it is baseless.

Or is it that you don't have any evidence to your own assumptions and on top of the second claim I mentioned?

I honestly can't follow what you're asking for here. I literally don't understand what it is you think I said, or what you're asking me to support or provide evidence for.

This is you from [0]:

   > ...we can all agree that cryptocurrency has an external appearance of being environmentally bad.

From: [1]

  Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Maybe I assumed you read this guideline, but clearly it seems that you did not read it, given that your own assumption lacks substance. Which is why I ask again:

Do you have evidence to your own assumption that cryptocurrencies have the perception or appearance of being bad for the environment? On top of that, where is the evidence that support the case that ALL cryptocurrencies are bad for the environment?

The fact that you are actively dodging these questions leads me to think that you have no evidence in general to support your entire sentence in [0] given that it has ZERO sources which means it is absolutely baseless.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29065284

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think your request for sources is quite unreasonable -- clearly the original comment was based on general informal observations and the fact that the environmental impact frequently shows up in news articles. However, I did find a paper you can look up:

An Index of Cryptocurrency Environmental Attention (ICEA), (Yizhi Wang, Brian M. Lucey, Samuel Vigne, Larisa Yarovaya).

It is pretty dense, but here's the first paragraph of their conclusion:

"We have developed a new measure of attention to sustainability concerns of cryptocurrency markets’ growth. An Index of Cryptocurrency Environmental Attention (ICEA) has been constructed using 778.2 million news stories from the Lexis Nexis database. The index demonstrates significant increases in attention to cryptocurrency environmental impacts displayed via both traditional and social media channels from 2014 to 2021. Our findings suggest that the public is growing more concerned with energy consumption of these innovative asset."

> I think your request for sources is quite unreasonable

So the HN guidelines [0] for keeping the discussion substantive is somewhat 'unreasonable' when talking about something controversial like cryptocurrencies which even the commenter knew their long reply was unfounded? [1]

I am simply keeping the discussion substantiative.

As for the source you provided, it's now substantiates the observation claim I am asking for. It answers the first request for evidence but not the second one and this paper primarily focuses on only two PoW cryptocurrencies but doesn't target 'all' of the others in general which would which make case if every single cryptocurrency have the same energy inefficiencies as the two cryptocurrencies mentioned in the article, which is what I am also looking for.

One commenter gave an alternative cryptocurrency [2] that wasn't mentioned in the paper which aims to be energy efficient and addresses the other commenter's response even when they failed to answer my question by replying with another question. [3].

Given that one mention of the existence of an energy efficient cryptocurrency, what evidence exists that 'all of them' are harmful to the environment?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29065284

[2] https://assets.website-files.com/5d80307810123f5ffbb34d6e/60...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29065963

As has repeatedly been pointed out, the claim is based on the perception of environmental unfriendliness, so this tangent about the hypothetical existence of a non-harmful one is irrelevant.

The paper described the terms they performed analysis on:

("cryptocurrency" or "bitcoin" or "ethereum") and atl1("energy" or “energy consumption” or “energy footprint” or “climate change” or “carbon footprint” or "environment" or "environmental" or “environmental impact” or “carbon footprint” )

So, while they didn't list every niche cryptocurrency, they did include the catch-all phrase. This should capture some of the sentiment about those niche cryptocurrencies (to the extent that people care about them).

> the claim is based on the perception of environmental unfriendliness, so this tangent about the hypothetical existence of a non-harmful one is irrelevant.

It is still relevant given that the grounds of whether if this is true or not needs to be substantiated, as soon as they said:

> Maybe that's unfair, maybe it's not.

The claimant couldn't help dangerously blanket labelling all cryptocurrencies as the problem (and knew it was unfair) and left it up for discussion. They should have just given sources in the first place, informal or not.

> So, while they didn't list every niche cryptocurrency, they did include the catch-all phrase. This should capture some of the sentiment about those niche cryptocurrencies

Given that paper also explored the truth of PoW-cryptocurrencies being bad for the environment (with evidence) and the claimant blanket labelling 'every single cryptocurrency' as being perceived as environmentally bad (without evidence), the truth of whether it this is the case for 'every single cryptocurrency' can be explored in this thread very quickly with evidence.

It isn't that hard. One user in this thread has already defeated your description of a 'hypothetical existence of a non-harmful' cryptocurrency given that it already exists.

I think you are disingenuously being asked to provide a source for an observation that you made informally (that cryptocurrency's environmental impact is becoming a well known problem). However, out of annoyance I went and found a source that you can use if you'd like.

An Index of Cryptocurrency Environmental Attention (ICEA), (Yizhi Wang, Brian M. Lucey, Samuel Vigne, Larisa Yarovaya)

It has the benefit of being fairly technical, so I guess the sort of person who make an 'argument' by lazily and pedantically demanding sources for common sense statements won't actually want to put in the work of reading it.

> I think you are disingenuously being asked to provide a source for an observation that you made informally

So one thinks it is safe to blanket label 'cryptocurrencies' meaning 'all of them' being harmful to the environment due to a basic and very lazy 'observation'. Unfortunately that was left unsubstantiated.

> However, out of annoyance I went and found a source that you can use if you'd like.

I see. So it is 'annoying' to substantiate your own comments? I don't want to repeat the same line that mentions this in the HN guidelines and it doesn't matter if it is informal or not.

My only request was for a source to this. The commenter knew that the burden of proof was on them to substantiate their assumption and they knew could not provide one or answer the other question.

I accept the source given here which answers the 'observation' claim, it doesn't however, answer if it is the case for every single cryptocurrency since the paper focuses on only two specific ones instead of the rest of them.

It doesn’t seem like you’re acknowledging the fact that the claim you’re challenging was never actually made

Lol, no. Apple will never associate with something as sketchy as crypto. The same reason they won't ever allow porn or gambling on the AppStore. Apple is about happy families, pastel colors and round shapes.

Apple don't allow gambling apps on the App Store? That's not true.

5.3.3 Apps may not use in-app purchase to purchase credit or currency for use in conjunction with real money gaming of any kind, and may not enable people to purchase lottery or raffle tickets or initiate fund transfers in the app.

Apple has FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM Sportsbook, etc. So it may follow the 5.3.3. rule, but it's certainly gambling in spirit if not in practice.

They also allow real gambling anyway, in the UK at least.

Irrelevant what this says, they DO allow gambling apps.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/william-hill-sports-betting/id... https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/bet365-sports-betting/id519684...

Two of the largest bookmakers in the UK.

And this one is a lottery app so directly one of the things you've said is not allowed

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/the-national-lottery-official/...

That rule is about about the IAP feature. Gambling apps are not required to use IAP, since they don't fall into the definition of what must use IAP. See for example, apps that let you purchase insurance being listed as an example of IAP exempt apps in 3.2.1(v). 5.3.3 forbids using IAP for these purposes, as under some jurisdictions it would put Apple under the gambling regulations. (Apple could be viewed as collecting bet money from betters on behalf of the bookmaker).

5.3.4 makes it perfectly clear that gambling apps are allowed, if they are "free", properly licensed/authorized to operate, and geo-restricted to only be available where they are authorized to operate.

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