The tale of woe about the harm Bitcoin does to the environment from many a “concern merchant” is built on such a thin veneer that I thought it would be gone by now. The fact that this meme still propagates has driven me to write a post that I can reference such that I can contain it in a tweet every time the issue arises.

In simple terms the argument goes like this.

• Bitcoin is an energy intensive industry that uses polluting energy
• Bitcoin creates no value (at least so little that it does not justify the environmental collateral damage it causes)
• Bitcoin miners should either voluntarily stop, be forced to stop, or the Proof of Work algorithm should be changed to something more environmentally friendly
• Due to the above, it is immoral to mine Bitcoin and accelerate Earth towards catastrophic climate change.

The argument fundamentally misses that the method of energy production is the...