Bitcoin’s energy use is capped by design and more than half of that energy today is clean. AI can claim neither.
The bitcoin network today draws an estimated 138TWh/year, on the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance’s 2025 numbers, or roughly 0.5% of the world’s electricity, and that figure has barely moved in years.
Bitcoin mining now runs at 43% on renewables, 52% if you include nuclear power.
Cambridge puts network emissions at 39.8 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent, the profile of a mid-sized industrial estate rather than a civilisational threat.
The sermon from the anti-bitcoin brigade did not stop because bitcoin got smaller. It stopped because attention shifted to AI data centres.
yeah, talked about that with someone today... funny how that talking point has entirely gone away
I think someone should really do a historiography of why
Like, did the story die because bitcoiners gave good arguments?
Is it because leftwing zeitgeist is fickle as the wind, and all attention shifted to Gaza?
Is it because the argument became indefensible without also adopting an anti-AI position?
I still hear Hank Green on YouTube ranting about "crypto mining" energy usage from time to time, he's got a pretty large audience and is fairly well respected by them. It's unfortunate since he does do some decent science education content intended for average people.
green interests were always just (rationally so, per a DCF analysis) a low interest-rate phenomenon #1355954
that makes total sense
i wonder if that blows their mind.... the future of the earth becomes a less valuable investment in present value terms when interest rates are high :)
Oooh man maybe this is why people hate economists
they're usually not economically literate enough to even grasp the point. Oh well