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December 02, 2018, 10:47:31 AM |
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As long as punitive taxation is applied to energy consumers/polluters , I would remind you that the mining activity of cryptos-actives (bitcoin, ether, lumen, monero... and 2,500 others) uses the equivalent of the electrical energy consumed every day by a country like Austria.
Except that one out of every two crypto units created was created via carbon energy, notably coal-fired electricity in China, Russia, Mongolia, the former Eastern European countries, etc.).
This represents a carbon footprint equivalent to that of vehicles circulating in France... except that the energy to produce 1 bitcoin did not allow anyone to heat anyone, nor to bring someone closer to his work, nor to temper a greenhouse to produce more food, etc. What value creation behind cryptocurrencies?
In the absence of a central server (Bitcoin does not depend on a state or a central bank but is a decentralized currency), the global architecture is based on the principle of "peer to peer", like the "torrents" that allow Internet users to exchange music and videos on exchange platforms. Most of the servers, members of this global network, are located in China, which is a bit tricky when you consider that the Chinese central bank has demanded the closure of sites offering to acquire bitcoins from Chinese citizens. The Chinese datacenters that "mine" this cryptomonnaise alone consume nearly 6 TWh/year to do so. Far ahead of the United States, Russia, India, Japan, Germany, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and France (No. 10 in this ranking).
And if the cryptos fall back to zero (they have already lost 80% of their value, or $750 billion), their mining will have represented one of the most fantastic waste of energy in modern history. The only "objective" value associated with them is the energy cost of their extraction... Cryptos will not leave any material traces in the world heritage (because even an abandoned industrial wasteland is a testimony to our past, structural metal can be recycled, etc.).
Cryptos could have just increased the pollution of the planet without ever having been used for anything to protect it.
But taxing crypto-minors is impossible.... fortunately there is still the taxpayer!
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