This moral question has two layers. We must answer both layers, in order to come to a sound ethical solution.
Layer 1: The question about the facts.
Does BTC has a negative impact on the environment?
- The short term answer to this clearly has to be "yes", because BTC mining uses a lot of electricity gained from burning fossil fuels!
- The long term answer is not that clear. BTC mining already uses over 70% renewable energy, so its pushing the demand for renewable energy. That could be good for the renewable energy industry and therefore a good thing for the environment. But it also is a good use for not used renewable energy, making the industry more profitable. For more information watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DidAwxWaDKI
And it also can be used for extra gains on fossil fuels. For more information read this:
https://www.publish0x.com/sirloin/burning-gas-for-bitcoin-mining-xdgyxmz
After China banning crypto mining, a greater step towards BTC becoming green is on its way, so it all points to BTC having more of a long term positive impact on the environment despite the huge consumption of energy. But for the sake of argument lets assume BTC is bad for the environment. The moral question is still unanswered.
Layer 2: The question about ethics.
Is investing in BTC and trading unethical because of its negative impact on the environment?
Of course it is bad to poison a river with chemicals because the negative impact of the industrial waste in the water will harm all the people drinking it. This would be a case where the pollution of the environment is a direct and clear threat to other people and therefore morally wrong.
But mining BTC is not the same. It´s using electricity, a lot of it, but that itself is not a wrongdoing.
Many people defend BTC with so called "whataboutism". What about cruise ships they are even worse for the environment, what about the gaming industry its using a lot of energy too...
Whataboutism is a very poor strategy because it doesn´t make a claim about the normative value of the action itself. You can easily see that it is a bad rhetorical device, rather than a good argument, when put in perspective. Hey I just killed two people, but what about Stalin and Hitler, they killed millions! Doing a bad thing in fewer numbers than others doesn´t mean my wrongdoing is good, permissible or even less bad. So please all you coiners out there defending BTC stop doing it!
So lets rather focus on the question when using energy becomes an ethical problem. When using electricity per se is morally wrong because it harms the environment, you would have a very consistent, but also a very weak argument. The real question is when is it to much. I think it is impossible and not really expedient to put a number to that. But one thing is clear, when using electricity is equivalent to burning fossil fuels and therefore heating up the globe and is harming people long term, then you should at least not wast that energy.
Why is that? Because of the assumption, that we somehow have a responsibility for the future generations to leave a world behind that is at least not worse of than the world we were born into. For the sake of argument lets agree on the assumption (It´s quite a big topic, if that moral assumption is reasonable, but we can talk about that in the comments if you want). So if BTC mining has a negative effect on the environment and therefore on the future generations, it also has to have an even bigger positive impact on the lives of future generations.
That is why so many nocoiners, traditional bankers and the Warren Buffets who don´t see the value of BTC and crypto in general and think its a ponzi scheme or just another financial product say its bad for the environment. They don´t see the trade off.
That begs the question if BTC and crypto in general bring a certain value to future generations. That is another layer I want to discuss in my upcoming post. But let´s summarize:
If your answer to the first question is no, there is no moral problem with BTC.
If its yes, we have to check if we have an obligation towards future generations.
If your answer is no, again we have no moral problem with BTC.
If its yes, we have to check if we can compensate the negative impact on the environment with an even greater value to fulfill that moral obligation towards future generations.
Next time I want to check if crypto is bringing more value than harm to the world.
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