China’s recent measures against bitcoin are notable because they are, in part, motivated by environmental worries.
Before the recent crackdown, bitcoin mining in China was expected to generate more carbon emissions than countries such as the Philippines or the Czech Republic. Credit: Marko Ahtisaari via Creative Commons
Bitcoin advocates have long predicted the cryptocurrency’s rise would transform the world for the better. Twelve years on from its emergence, critics say the process of creating bitcoin is now doing quite the opposite — namely, endangering the world with its environmental impact.
The issue has come to a head in China, which is home to nearly two-thirds of the world’s bitcoin mining, according to data for last year from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. In recent weeks, China
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Taiwan is almost entirely dependent on imported fossil fuels for its power supply — a critical weakness in the event of a Chinese blockade. But the very democratic forces on the island that China would be seeking to destroy through forced unification are also standing in the way of the obvious solution: aggressive investment in nuclear power and renewable energies.
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