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The Fake Environmentalist Attack on Bitcoin

ReasonTV
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55K views 3 years ago
By now, you've probably heard the environmentalist knock on bitcoin, including apocalyptic claims that it will use up all of the world's energy and will single-handedly increase global temperatures until the planet is uninhabitable. ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?sub_... Like us on Facebook:   / reason.magazine   Follow us on Twitter:   / reason   Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- "Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are terrible for the environment," declares Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "It's an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions," pronounces former Federal Reserve Chair and current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. "It's a way to both hide dirty money and destroy the environment at the …...more
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The Fake Environmentalist Attack on Bitcoin
4KLikes
55,115Views
2021Nov 16
By now, you've probably heard the environmentalist knock on bitcoin, including apocalyptic claims that it will use up all of the world's energy and will single-handedly increase global temperatures until the planet is uninhabitable. ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?sub_... Like us on Facebook:   / reason.magazine   Follow us on Twitter:   / reason   Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- "Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are terrible for the environment," declares Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "It's an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions," pronounces former Federal Reserve Chair and current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. "It's a way to both hide dirty money and destroy the environment at the same time," says Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Such environmentalist attacks on bitcoin are best understood as a strategy by economic, media, and political elites to undermine a powerful new form of money that they can't control. Critics distort the basic facts about what's known as bitcoin "mining," the process through which a global network of computers maintain the bitcoin network through computation. Though energy intensive, this process is what makes bitcoin a truly decentralized monetary system.  Photo Credits: Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash; Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash; Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash; Imagine China/Newscom; Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash; Imagine China/Newscom; Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash; Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Si/Newscom; Matt McClain/Pool Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Photo by Blake Wheeler on Unsplash; MING DE/FEATURECHINA/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Rodrigo Sura/EFE/Newscom; Kyodo/Newscom; MING DE/FEATURECHINA/Newscom; Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash; Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye; joe sohm/Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group/Newscom; Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye; Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Newscom; Photo by Raisa Milova on Unsplash; Photo by Sava Bobov on Unsplash; Yuri Smityuk/TASS/Newscom; Monty Rakusen/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Mirko Tobias Schäfer, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Federalreserve, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Ron Adar/M10s/MEGA/Newscom; Beata Zawrzel/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Ingram Publishing/Newscom; Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash; BugWarp, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; Beata Zawrzel/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Kyodo/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Si/Newscom; Beata Zawrzel/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Budrul Chukrut/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Si/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; RAFAEL BEN ARI/Rafael Ben Ari/Newscom; imageBROKER/Markus Mainka/Newscoms; Federalreserve, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Human Rights Foundatuon; Niccarter.info; Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Si/Newscom; Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Terry Ballard from Merrick, New York, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Music credits: Vuelta al Sol, by Tomas Novoa via Artlist.io; "Lyke the Robot," by Out of Flux via Artlist.io Footage Credit: Jim Epstein and Noor Greene Produced by Regan Taylor; graphics by Isaac Reese; audio post-production by Ian Keyser

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ReasonTV

1.18M subscribers