Bitcoin ‘Energy Per Transaction’ Is A Misleading Metric
Measuring Bitcoin’s environmental impact with “energy per transaction” is misleading and disingenuous.Environmentalists say Bitcoin uses too much energy. The world can’t afford it. It’s not worth it. That’s what they say. So, it must be true. Or must it? If you’re reading this, you’re probably aware of the popular anti-Bitcoin “energy per transaction” narrative. You’ve seen it in many major media publications. It goes something like this:“According to Digiconomist, a single bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of power that the average American household consumes in a month — which....
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In physics, the definition of "energy" is "that which allows work to be done." This means that money is energy, since it can be used to do work via payments to people. The energy in money can be thought of as "economic energy". Economists call economic energy "price" and measure it in terms of "euros" or "Kenyan shillings" and so on. But, these units are abstract because their quantity changes over time. Physicists would prefer to use units such as joules or kilowatt-hours, which have a concrete basis in physical realities of mass....