Here’s to Crypto Going the Way of Esperanto
Now that its much-trumpeted potential in the financial universe has been debunked, blockchain may find a place as a source of eccentric pursuit much like the made-up language.
Aimless activity.
Photographer: Photo by API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
The rise and fall of cryptocurrencies over the past decade has been accompanied by an extraordinary degree of waste.
Trillions in notional market value was created, traded, and then evaporated. As much as 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere every year by crypto miners, equivalent to the carbon footprint of the Netherlands. Hundreds of thousands of computer mining rigs are sitting in unopened boxes, according to Coindesk, waiting for prices to rise enough to make connecting them profitable. In previous bear markets, truckloads of burned-out mining rigs have reportedly been sold for scrap.