Spochybniteľná etika Bitcoin ESG Junk Science

By Bitcoin Časopis - pred 2 rokmi - Čas čítania: 11 minút
Pia, 11. marca 2022 11:00

Spochybniteľná etika Bitcoin ESG Junk Science

Bitcoin environmental concerns are often portrayed in misleading and exaggerated ways contrary to proper research.

Bitcoin receives disproportionate media coverage over its tiny fraction of a percent of global emissions and relatively inconsequential environmental impact. Why this happens requires following the money into environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) accounting. ESG accountants appear to be using Bitcoin’s open, transparent ledger — that can be audited by anyone in the world in real time — to exaggerate Bitcoin’s impact on the environment, with shoddy science, while profiting from the very fears they provoke.

Vo februári 2022 vyšla op-ed s názvom „prehodnotenie Bitcoin’s Carbon Footprint,” was published in the scientific journal “Joule,” authored by four researchers: Alex de Vries, Ulrich Gallersdörfer, Lena Klaaßen and Christian Stoll. Their written commentary, which admits limitations in their estimates, states that as bitcoin miners migrated from China to Kazakhstan and the United States in 2021, the network’s carbon footprint increased to 0.19% of global emissions. What went unnoticed by the media was that the researchers have professional motives to overstate Bitcoin’s relatively tiny environmental impact.

The op-ed’s lead author, Alex de Vries, failed to disclose that he is employed by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank. Central banks are no fans of open, global payment rails, which bypass monopolistic government settlement layers. Additionally, DNB is spolupracuje s the European Central Bank to investigate a "Digital Euro" or Central Bank Digital Currency. De Vries first released his “Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index” V novembri 2016, Ktorý sa zhoduje s jeho prvým kolom zamestnania v DNB, giving the appearance that DNB encouraged his critique of Bitcoin’s energy consumption. In November 2020, de Vries was rehired by the Dutch central bank as a data scientist in its financial economic crime unit and has been on a worldwide media tour for his “hobby” research ever since. As DNB is now propagáciu jeho výskumu, v skutočnosti je plateným opozičným výskumníkom pre DNB.

As an employee of a central bank, de Vries has an incentive to exaggerate Bitcoin’s environmental impact to protect the interests of his employer.

Vložený tweet.

Jeho spolupracovníci však majú úplne iné motívy. Gallersdörfer, Klaaßen a Stoll sú spoluzakladatelia Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI), spoločnosti, ktorá poskytuje údaje o uhlíkovej expozícii investícií do kryptomien a obchodných aktivít.

Všetci traja výskumníci CCRI spoločne napísali takmer tucet akademických prác o vplyve kryptomien na životné prostredie.

CCRI’s modus operandi is to exaggerate Bitcoin’s environmental impact through a technique the Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance (CCAF) describes as zaujatosť moderátora. This entails making apples-to-oranges comparisons — such as comparing Bitcoin to small countries — in order to elicit outrage, rather than making porovnania medzi jablkami a inými odvetviami. Najlepšie odhady CCRI o emisiách uhlíka sú potom zabalené a predané finančným inštitúciám, ktoré sú pod tlakom, aby zverejnili účtovníctvo ESG kvôli pobúreniu investorov podporovaných zaujatosťou moderátora, ktorú samotná CCRI použila na vyvolanie tohto pobúrenia.

It doesn’t matter that the small countries Bitcoin is compared to have a GDP that is half of the value secured by Bitcoin. Nezáleží na tom, či publikované práce majú nízku úroveň alebo im chýba rigorózna odborná kontrola („Joule“ je utajované a nevyžaduje partnerské hodnotenie for commentary articles). Nor does it matter that Bitcoin’s emissions are too small to have a meaningful impact on climate change. All that matters is that the media is ochotný zverejniť články zdôrazňujúce ich nepotrebné vedecké príbehy spolu s čerešňové príkladya finančný priemysel je pod tlakom zmluvu s CCRI využívať ich výskum a údaje.

Výskumníci ESG sú schopní profitovať tým, že využívajú médiá na to, aby vyvolali verejné pobúrenie nad takým bezvýznamným množstvom emisií uhlíka, že skutočných ochrancov životného prostredia by to malo znepokojiť, že pozornosť verejnosti je odvádzaná od väčších problémov, ktoré majú skutočné a podstatné dôsledky pre ľudskosť.

Preháňam Bitcoin's Environmental Impact

Je iróniou, že na Cambridgeskej univerzite Stránka porovnania, where it describes the tricks of ESG presenter bias, it publishes a graphic that exaggerates Bitcoin’s power consumption to look larger than it is. Here is Cambridge’s original artwork:

Všimnite si, ako Bitcoin is almost the same size as industries that have significantly higher values. If the Cambridge researchers had drawn the bubbles to proper scale, it would look like this:

These kinds of comparisons don’t even tell the full story, given that Bitcoin používa viac obnoviteľnej energie than any of these other industries. Despite what academia and the media would have us believe, Bitcoin’s environmental impact is too small to have any meaningful impact on a global scale.

To však neznamená bitcoin miners don’t have a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment in their communities. However, those are local concerns and not particularly a good use of outsized international attention if protecting the global environment is the true goal.

Keď environmentálni výskumníci, médiá a vláda devote greater than a fraction of a percent of their content discussing Bitcoin’s emissions, it becomes a disservice to environmentalism. Undue diversions only serve to virtue signal, distract from more important issues and make people less trustful of legitimate environmental causes.

CCRI isn’t solving impactful environmental issues when it admonishes Bitcoin. The company mines open blockchain data for its media-driven narratives and shames the market into buying its own data, for profit. This data allows institutional investors nárokovať si uhlíkovú neutralitua nalákať na svoje produkty ekologicky uvedomelých investorov, pričom sa nedosiahne nič konkrétneho.

“‘ESG investing’ in its current form is similar to people who take selfies of themselves in fancy locations to show they were there, while barely experiencing it for real. Mostly theater, little substance. For example, we pollute, but buy offsets to make it someone else's problem. We outsource our manufacturing base to another country to reduce headline energy consumption, but then buy products they make while blaming them for polluting. This is deflection, not reform…People sell their Chinese shares, buy Apple shares instead, and pat themselves on the back. Meanwhile their phone, computer, chair, sneakers, cookware, electronic devices, and kids' toys are all partly Chinese made. A lot of it is window dressing. ‘ESG’ as currently used is corporate, sanitized, and nearly meaningless. It's like the word ‘synergy.’ It's a TPS report. If anything, pretending we are doing good to check off certain boxes as perceived by others, while still doing whatever we were doing before, slows real progress. One of the worst things we can do is to feel like we are doing something constructive, without actually doing so.” — lyn alden

Predaj osvedčených investícií

CCRI zverejňuje výročnú správu na podporu sietí proof-of-stake ako ekologických a zároveň podporuje a vysoko zavádzajúce metrika „energia na transakciu“. V správe CCRI sa neuznáva, že dôkaz o stávke nenahrádza dôkaz o práci, keďže tieto dva mechanizmy konsenzu dosahujú úplne odlišné ciele.

Dôkaz o práci je mechanizmus konsenzu, ktorý zaisťuje, že skupiny baníkov môžu kolektívne čeliť zlým aktérom – zaisťuje, že žiadna strana nemôže presadzovať kontrolu nad ostatnými používateľmi, a to všetko a zároveň poskytuje spravodlivú a meritokratickú distribúciu nových mincí. Dôkaz o vklade to takto nespĺňa pripomína podnikovú bezpečnostnú štruktúru, kde najbohatší vlastníci majú všetky hlasovacie práva a zakladatelia vopred ťažia nenahraditeľnú kontrolnú autoritu nad používateľmi, pričom dostávajú zložené dividendy.

With proof of stake, users have to trust the founders not to denial-of-service (DoS) attack them. In proof of work, miners buy energy on an open market to make DoS attacks too expensive, which in turn allows Bitcoin na chrániť práva menšinových používateľov. Doklad o spotrebe energie diela je vlastnosť, nie chyba.

Environmentálni výskumníci, ktorí tvrdia, že dôkaz o stávke je efektívnejší mechanizmus konsenzu, sú ako politický think-tank propagujúci plutokratické autoritárstvo ako efektívnejší druh vlády. Porovnať dôkaz o vklade s dôkazom o práci úplne míňa zmysel toho, ako decentralizácia funguje a čo má v úmysle dosiahnuť.

Prečo však CCRI vypracúva správu? Inštitucionálni investori zadávajú výskum CCRI, in order to promote centralized altcoins, while using the CCRI’s data to sell ESG-friendly “crypto” investments. By overstating Bitcoin’s global impact and promoting proof of stake as an alternative, the CCRI is effectively driving demand for institutional ESG products and its own ESG services. This isn’t about helping the environment — it’s a money-making scheme.

Bitcoin Is An Easy Target

Bitcoin’s open and transparent accounting makes it an easy target for those who benefit from exaggerating Bitcoin’s environmental impact for profit. An interesting thought experiment is to consider how environmental accountants would characterize other industries if they were as transparent about their energy consumption as Bitcoin je.

2020 správy aliancia Rapid Transit Alliance odhaduje, že svetový športový priemysel je zodpovedný za 0.6 % globálnych emisií – viac ako trikrát the emissions of Bitcoin. The report uses the same presenter bias of comparing the sports industry’s emissions to that of Spain or Poland. The report states that the global sports industry generates around $500 billion a year, which is considerably less than the amount of value secured by Bitcoin.

If the sports industry had open and transparent power consumption data, like Bitcoin does, would ESG accountants shame the sports community for causing an environmental disaster? Would it be a good use of everyone’s time when there are much more important environmental issues that need to be solved?

Bitcoin As A Green Investment

It might not be evident from media reports, but Bitcoin is already a relatively green investment. A 2021 papier stated that, “adding Bitcoin to a diversified equity portfolio can both enhance the risk–return relationship of the portfolio and reduce the portfolio's aggregate carbon emissions.” If institutions feel pressured to make their bitcoin holdings carbon neutral, it doesn’t take much effort. According to a Správa CoinShares z januára 2022, “Each bitcoin would require offsetting 2.2 tonnes of CO2 per year, or roughly the same as one return flight on business class between New York to Tokyo … At a bitcoin price of 42,000 USD, this would amount to an annual cost of 0.48%.”

Dokonca bitcoin miners that are démonizovaný v tlači, rovnako ako Greenidge Generation Holdings, vykonali celé svoje ťažobné operácie 100% uhlíkovo neutrálne bez značného úsilia. Greenidge využíva offsetové registre projektov, ktoré financujú projekty na sekvestráciu a znižovanie emisií.

A aj tak, Bitcoin is a powerful, location-agnostic, kupca poslednej inštancie obnoviteľnej energie, Že zostatky zaťaženie sietemôže financovať obnoviteľné zdroje energie dlhé prepojovacie fronty na preťažené sietea pomáha zmierniť spálený metánový plyn. When one realizes that Bitcoin is a solution to help monetize inefficiencies in the renewable energy sector — and as a zero-sum game increasing green mining disincentivizes carbon-intensive mining — some interesting ideas begin to take shape.

Stimulačné kompenzácie

V príspevku, ktorého autorom je Trójsky kríž a Andrew M. Bailey, "stimulačné kompenzácie” are proposed as a way for investors to make bitcoin holdings carbon neutral by investing just 0.5% of their holdings in green bitcoin mining operations. Unlike other proposals to green bitcoin, theirs promotes Bitcoin adoption, preserves the fungibility of bitcoin and costs nothing, while providing a return. Cross recently discussed the idea with Peter McCormack on an episode of “What Bitcoin Urobil“ ako aj počas následného rozhovoru s Nicom Carterom.

Dezinformácie ESG

ESG advocates are perhaps unlikely to endorse any form of green bitcoin mining, as it would effectively neutralize their conflicted narrative. Already de Vries et al. went out of their way to peddle misleading arguments, in their op-ed, to criticize green mining and downplay its role in environmental solutions.

Navrhujú napríklad, že zmiernenie emisií spáleného plynu prostredníctvom ťažby ponúka obmedzené výhody, ale ignorujú to vietor a klesajúce prietoky komína činiť bitcoin baníctva výrazne efektívnejšie a ekologickejšie než umožnenie vzplanutia metánu a potenciálneho úniku do atmosféry. Ekológovia nedávno uznali, že metán je oveľa väčší problém, ako sa doteraz predpokladalo.

Or when de Vries showed Bitcoin’s energy consumption stúpajúca after China banned bitcoin mining, which resulted in a well-publicized 50% pokles hash rate. De Vries to odmietol zahrnúť do svojich odhadov a odmietol hovorí„Vzhľadom na predchádzajúce výzvy pri určovaní najpravdepodobnejšieho vplyvu spotreby energie by akákoľvek úprava bola svojvoľná. Z tohto dôvodu neboli vykonané žiadne úpravy, ktoré by odrážali bezprostredný vplyv zákazu. Toto je fakt, že jeho vlastné odhady sú falošné. De Vries urobil kariéru ESG na vrchole a debunked “energy per transaction” metric, while 100% dvojité započítanie the same footprint onto investors.

In dokument napísaný de Vriesom a Stollom, in 2021, the two erroneously estimated that the average service life of a Bitcoin ASIC miner was only 16 months. This is očividne falošné a ľahko vyvrátiteľné údajmi v reťazci ktorý ukazuje, že Bitmain S7, ktoré majú sedem rokov, sú stále aktívne využívané baníkmi. Ozbrojením akademickej obce sú podvodné tvrdenia zopakovali médiá without fact-checking. In reality, Bitcoin accounts for an estimated 0.05 % celosvetového elektronického odpadu a od ASIC minerov nemajú batérie ani zložité systémy, diely sú ľahko recyklovateľné.

When misleading arguments are used to dismiss Bitcoin’s environmental efforts, while simultaneously overstating its footprint, it becomes evident that critics are not acting in good faith. How can they be when they have glaring conflicts of interest?

The ESG community has an ethics problem where its own architects profit off of the hysterics they generate and often fail to disclose those conflicts of interests to the public as their junk science narratives are amplified by the media. Exaggerated comparisons, deceptive arguments and profit-driven motives leaves the public with the perception that criticizing Bitcoin’s relatively miniscule footprint does not stem from a selfless and courageous act of environmentalism. Rather, it appears that Bitcoin critics have professional motives in mind, and a desire to maintain the status quo, that make their claims ethically questionable.

Bitcoin, of course, does not care. Renewables need Bitcoin viac Bitcoin needs renewables. The ESG industry can extract Bitcoin’s data, exaggerate its externalities and downplay any progress to profit through green institutional investment products. Bitcoin will keep on producing blocks and paving the way for open payment rails with honest, incorruptible proof of work. All the while, miners will buy up every stranded and wasted megawatt of renewable energy and give it a fighting chance to make headway in the market. The future of energy production is bright and Bitcoin will use it to stimulovať inovácie a ľudský rozkvet.

Toto je príspevok hosťa od Level39. Vyjadrené názory sú úplne ich vlastné a nemusia nevyhnutne odrážať názory BTC Inc alebo Bitcoin časopis.

Originálny zdroj: Bitcoin časopis