22nd September 2021 > > Environmental concerns.

tl;dr

According to at least one market participant, the energy usage of BTC is minimal in a global context.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

The brief dip last night below $40k would have had the techies getting all excited, sitting at their screens and furiously scribbling made up lines on charts to form pretty patterns that provide no insight whatsoever into what might happen next.

Cryptos will continue to suffer in line with equities until or unless the Evergrande situation is resolved one way or the other.

All risk assets will recover in due course, and will do so very, very suddenly.

Occasional Series – The CCC is woke

This by-line is such a blatantly true statement it does not need any further justification.

But even I am a little worried that the NHS Diversity Officer is paid more than the NHS Chief Executive.

And that other job going at Nottinghamshire NHS Trust for (yet another) Diversity Officer at £78,000 per annum. Despite the 14 odd pages of job description for this role, the most challenging aspect will be learning to cut and paste from Stonewall’s website into a PowerPoint presentation.

1.25% extra taxes anyone?

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – BTC energy usage

New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) has produced a study that claims BTC mining accounts for 0.04% of global energy consumption but 0.1% of global carbon emissions.

I think there are two obvious conclusions to draw from this if true.

Firstly, in the grand scheme of things, BTC mining is a rounding error in the global sum of carbon emissions. China’s daily increase in the use of coal for power generation – and coal of the dirtiest type – swamps any noticeable impact due to cryptos.

Secondly, despite this immateriality in global terms, it is clear that BTC mining can be greened quite dramatically from where it is now. I suspect that the move out of China largely to the US by the miners will help to close this gap very quickly.

What also caught my eye was this statement by NYDIG:

“Even in our most aggressive, high price, scenario, in which Bitcoin reaches $10 million by 2030, its emissions amount to only 0.9 percent of the world’s total, and its energy outlay is just 0.4 percent of the global total.”

Now that is the kind of BTC price prediction I like.