Once again this year, we would like to sweeten the Advent season for our readers with an Advent calendar. In a slightly different form, each door contains a “knowledge bomb”, which will be supplemented with an extraordinary special prize on Christmas Day.
Behind the twenty-second door is the term “Energy waste”. To enter the giveaway on the 24th, simply take part in the polls and like the respective Twitter posts.
Energy waste
The looming energy crisis in Europe is increasingly putting the power consumption of the Bitcoin network back on the agenda of crypto critics. The energy-intensive “proof of work mining” on which the network is based has even led individual critics to call for a Bitcoin ban. Statements like “one Bitcoin transaction consumes the same amount of electricity as an entire household in one and a half months” lead to misleading untruths.
What is not mentioned enough in the newly flared-up debate is that the Bitcoin network is the first globally distributed decentralized payment network that has reliably and unrestrictedly guaranteed the security and transfer of its digital assets to every participant for more than 10 years. The underlying asset token Bitcoin thus represents much more than just a speculative cryptocurrency. What may a censorship-resistant global network, on which more and more people in developing countries also rely, cost in terms of energy? Doesn’t the free market offer the most efficient proof of a right to exist?
