Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency
This seems like good news for speculators (disclosure: I still hold Bitcoin and worked at a Bitcoin exchange).<p>Having said that, &quot;Wall Street&quot; should be wary of enabling the use of a system that is using more electricity than the country of Switzerland [0] without any productive output. The energy consumption is rapidly rising too. Furthermore, Bitcoin&#x27;s transaction throughput is dismally low compared to existing payment systems (Visa, PayPal, etc.) and &quot;smart contract&quot; systems like Ethereum seems to still not show any productive output aside from scams and severe bugs in wallets and contracts that lose millions of dollars.<p>I&#x27;m all for &quot;wait and see&quot;, but have we ever done that with a technology that is literally using more electricity than a medium sized nation? When are we going to ask crypto-fans to be accountable for the burned energy? We&#x27;re asking Google and Facebook to treat our data fairly, can we ask proof-of-work miners to treat our planet fairly? At least wait until the blockchain can solve a real world problem before burning through the mines?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;digiconomist.net&#x2F;bitcoin-energy-consumption" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;digiconomist.net&#x2F;bitcoin-energy-consumption</a>