bitcoin

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Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and has only minor overlap with the IndieWeb, conceptually both have been described as a form of decentralization, and some IndieWeb tip pages have provided a Bitcoin address as a payment option in the past.

IndieWeb Examples

None currently.

Criticism

Environmental Hazards

Could singlehandedly raise global temp 2°C+ in 3 decades (or less). 2018-10-29 Nature: Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C

2022-02-18 The Guardian: Bitcoin miners revived a dying coal plant – then CO2 emissions soared

2021-09-17 The Guardian: Waste from one bitcoin transaction ‘like binning two iPhones’ / Study highlights vast churn in computer hardware that the cryptocurrency incentivises

2022-03-20 Is bitcoin compatible with ESG investing?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. It is part of a larger global trend where investors are increasingly using non-financial factors as part of their analysis process to identify material risks and growth opportunities in their portfolios.

Bitcoin is not compatible with ESG investing.

Massive electricity usage

2021-02-27 The Guardian: Electricity needed to mine bitcoin is more than used by 'entire countries'
one dollar’s worth of bitcoin took 17 megajoules of energy, more than double the amount of energy it took to mine one dollar’s worth of copper, gold and platinum

Tweet citations:

2021-09-03 https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1433893124150071335
- "By simply existing, Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, uses astonishing amounts of electricity.
  
  The Bitcoin network consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than the country of Finland. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/03/climate/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-electricity.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur" @nytimes September 3, 2021

2017-12-06 Ars Technica: Bitcoin’s insane energy consumption, explained
One estimate suggests the Bitcoin network consumes as much energy as Denmark.

Mining Wastes Electricity At Loss

Quotes from https://pthree.org/2016/01/30/bitcoin-mining-rate-and-waste/ tweeted:

https://twitter.com/BrianTRice/status/695062129431302144
"$609 spent on electricity per Bitcoin mined. Bitcoin is currently trading at $376/BTC"

https://pthree.org/2016/01/30/bitcoin-mining-rate-and-waste/
So, according to those numbers, unless using renewable energy, cheaper electricity, or Bitcoin trading goes north of $610 USB/BTC mining for Bitcoin is a net loss. This comes at the expense of 1.3 million pounds of CO2 released into the atmosphere every hour.

https://twitter.com/KuraFire/status/695056830158999552
"I would argue that Bitcoin is the worst idea to come out of Computer Science in the history of mankind."

Monoculture

Bitcoin is software monoculture, not an open protocol:

From https://twitter.com/patio11/status/682663933941952512 via Ben Werdmüller

[@patio11] Bitcoin is a single C++ codebase, Bitcoin core, not a protocol that anyone can independently interoperate with. It's IE6, not HTTP.

Numerous unresolvable scaling issues

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/dealbook/the-bitcoin-believer-who-gave-up.html

Bitcoin maximalism

Beware of "Bitcoin maximalists" / "Bitcoin maximalism": https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin-maximalism.asp
2021-06-29 Mysterious Bitcoin Maximalist Mircea Popescu Allegedly Found Dead
2021-03-22 Ethereum Will Beat Bitcoin by 2025
The only thing worse than a Bitcoin maximalist is a Fiat Maximalist. :)

Spambots

Casual mention of Bitcoin on social media bring out the spam bots in force

https://www.facebook.com/tantek.celik/posts/10102083451927433

Enables ransomware

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Hospital-hack-reveals-digital-risk-in-medical-6834978.php

Difficult to Sell

https://twitter.com/TedOnPrivacy/status/940588631709896704 (thread)
- "I'm trying to sell some of my Bitcoin, and the whole process is so terrible, it's almost hilarious."
- "is it really money if you can't use it nor convert it to anything else" [1]

Insecure Wallet Services

2017-12-06 Business Insider: Thieves stole potentially millions of dollars in bitcoin in a hacking attack on a cryptocurrency company
2017-11-13 Business Insider: The amount of ether frozen in digital wallets is worth $162 million (Ethereum rather than Bitcoin but still)

Digital Tulip

🌷 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are digital tulips at best, except you can actually plant tulip bulbs and get pretty flowers, and sometimes more bulbs!

Thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1462471938996064263
- "Worth adding, bitcoin is not a store of value, a hedge against inflation, nor does it provide diversification. It has no underlying, no income, and no statistically significant long term relationship to macroeconomic factors. It's simply a digital tulip.
  https://twitter.com/jimstewartson/status/1462157679829291015" @smdiehl November 21, 2021

2018-02-02 The Guardian: Bitcoin biggest bubble in history, says economist who predicted 2008 crash

Cargo culture

2018-04-03 "Decentralized Identifiers": Bitcoin Cargo-Culture and Land Grabbing for the Top Level Names (thread)

Artificial trading volumes

2019-03-22 WSJ: Most Bitcoin Trading Faked by Unregulated Exchanges, Study Finds
Nearly 95% of all reported trading in bitcoin is artificially created by unregulated exchanges, a new study concludes

Other criticisms

2018-07-13 NYT 12 Russian Agents Indicted in Mueller Investigation
Russian military intelligence agency, known as the G.R.U. […] the Russians principally sought to use Bitcoin to fund their work, including the purchase of servers and domain names. […] also sought to create their own money by “mining” Bitcoins […] Bitcoin generated from the GRU’s mining activity was used, for example, to pay a Romanian company to register the domain dcleaks.com

Criticism: bad for mental health (like gambling in general?) 2022-02-16 Vice: ‘Crypto Ruined My Life’: The Mental Health Crisis Hitting Bitcoin Investors

Humor

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1261351775698694147 (see threads, quote tweets etc. well executed troll?)
- "I don’t understand bitcoin. Please explain it to me." @jk_rowling May 15, 2020

2021-12-14 WaPo: What the Modi Twitter Breach Tells Us About Hackers /
Pitching Bitcoin has become the Rick Roll of the hacking community — a funny prank rather than a nasty attack.