[ExI] Sell your Bitcoins!

[Kelly Anderson]

Apologies, I thought you took it off list. I am very confident of my
positions on these matters.

Money has ALWAYS been dirty and cost the environment quite a bit of
damage. As an example of how this works, prior to the Spanish arriving
in Peru, gold and silver was used primarily as a localized aesthetic
or ceremonial item. Once the Spanish came and wanted money, the
transformation of metal into global commercial money drastically
accelerated environmental destruction, creating a direct historical
parallel to modern concerns over Bitcoin. Here's a little AI insight:

When a resource shifts from a purely localized aesthetic or ceremonial
item into a global "proof of value" or currency, the incentive shifts
from satisfying a finite need to chasing infinite accumulation.
The mechanics, drivers, and scale of environmental damage match
closely when comparing Inca and Spanish silver mining to modern
Bitcoin mining.

1. The Core Economic Driver: Finite vs. Infinite Demand

Inca Metals (Finite Demand): For the Incas, gold and silver were
religious symbols representing the sweat of the sun and tears of the
moon. Production stopped once a temple or royal estate was
sufficiently decorated. Demand had a natural ceiling, keeping
environmental pollution strictly localized, though not zero.

Spanish Silver & Bitcoin (Infinite Demand): Once silver became global
currency (the Spanish piece of eight), demand became infinite because
money can always buy more power, goods, and labor. Similarly, Bitcoin
mining has no "end state." Because Bitcoin operates as a decentralized
currency and digital store of value, the incentive to mine more blocks
remains infinitely bound to its market price.

2. The Technological Response to Competition

To extract more value faster, both systems shifted toward highly
resource-intensive, brute-force technologies.

Spanish Colonial Silver Mining
Physically extracting, crushing, and chemically processing mountain ore.
Massive deforestation (for furnace fuel) and regional mercury
poisoning of water tables.
Running out of high-grade surface ore forced the Spanish to use toxic
mercury amalgamation.

Modern Bitcoin Mining
Solving complex, arbitrary cryptographic puzzles via massive server farms.
Extreme electricity consumption leading to high carbon emissions and
electronic waste.
Rising puzzle difficulty forces miners to use more power and buy
specialized, short-lived ASIC hardware.

3. The Localized vs. Global Footprint

The Spanish Shift: Just as Spanish silver mining shifted pollution
from local Peruvian valleys to the global atmosphere—leaving a
permanent lead and mercury trace in the Quelccaya Ice Cap—Bitcoin
transformed a digital concept into a massive physical footprint.
The Bitcoin Footprint: Bitcoin mining requires constant, baseline
electricity. This demand often prolongs the life of fossil-fuel plants
or strains local power grids. According to data tracked by the
Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, the network consumes
more energy annually than entire mid-sized nations like Argentina or
Sweden.

The Nuance: Where the Parallel Breaks Down
While the economic incentive (money creation) is identical, the
physical mechanics differ significantly in transparency and direct
toxicity:

Direct vs. Indirect Harm: Spanish mining directly poisoned local
ecosystems and indigenous workers with liquid mercury.
Bitcoin mining does not release mercury or local toxins; its
environmental harm is indirect, stemming from the carbon footprint of
the power grids feeding the computers.

The Renewable Pivot: Unlike 16th-century mining, modern Bitcoin mining
is highly mobile. Because miners chase the absolute cheapest
electricity to stay profitable, they increasingly look for stranded,
surplus energy, such as hydroelectric power or flared natural gas,
though the net impact remains heavily debated by environmental
scientists.

---

So you see, the damage from Bitcoin is more diffuse and potentially
reversible. Thus new money, Bitcoin, is more environmentally sound
than the old money, Gold and Silver. That being said, there is nothing
that keeps you from creating a crypto currency that doesn't have a
Proof of Work. Proof of Stake is one such approach, though I won't
pretend to understand it, so I won't be investing in any Proof of
Stake currencies myself. I take the Warren Buffet approach of only
investing in things you understand. That's why I don't own even
Etherium, which apparently has proved to be good as there is not much
aside from functionality that makes Etherium function like "money"
it's more like code, as I understand it. Code has value, but it's not
a store of value, if that makes sense. It isn't a proof of work, but a
check that work has been done according to the contract. I won't
pretend to understand ANYTHING about any other cryptocurrency other
than to say a lot of it is probably junk.

-Kelly

On Fri, May 29, 2026 at 4:52 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 4:43 PM Kelly Anderson <postmowoods at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> >> Your history of the many sins committed by gold miners over the last few thousand years was quite interesting but unfortunately nobody can change the past, however we can do something about the present and future sins of bitcoin miners. And the entire issue of gold is irrelevant to this discussion because the dollar has not been on the gold standard since 1971 when Nixon severed the last link between the U.S. dollar and gold by ending the ability of foreign governments to exchange dollars for gold, and even before that in 1933 Roosevelt made it illegal for US citizens to make that exchange. As for the other two major world currencies, the European euro and the Chinese yuan, they were NEVER on the gold standard, and yet those 3 currencies run the world, and they can be directly used to buy things; and those are properties that bitcoin does not have, and neither does gold.
>>
>>
>> > Once again, you miss the point. I think perhaps you do this on
>> purpose. The point isn't that the dollar is linked to gold. Of course
>> it isn't. I wasn't speaking about the dollar, I was speaking about the
>> past performance of gold AS MONEY.
>
>
> OK so your point was about the historical mendacity of gold miners. Fine, but I thought this discussion was about bitcoin and the advantages and disadvantages it has over the paper forms of money that currently run the world. I don't understand what gold or gold miners have to do with the price of eggs in China.
>
> And speaking of "purpose", why did you purposely decide to take this debate off the list?  Was it because you lost confidence in the strength of your own arguments and didn't wish to be publicly embarrassed?
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>> > And that all money has almost always come at a considerable cost to those who do the proof of work that makes it money.
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> I'm not sure what you could call "proof of work" when it comes to paper money, certainly not the energy required to run the printing presses. Maybe the "proof of work" of a paper dollar is the fact that, although imperfect, it helped in enabling the building of a vibrant economy.
>
>> > The future of Bitcoin can't be changed without a 51% agreement to
>> change it. And why do you think ANYONE would agree to that?
>
>
> Agreement has nothing to do with it. In 2016  52.9% of the voters agreed that Donald Trump should NOT be the next president, but he became the next president anyway.
>
>   John K Clark
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