Twitter Spaces on Bitcoin’s energy footprint

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In a provocative guest post for FT Alphaville this week, Omid Malekan, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, argued that it was disingenuous to criticise bitcoin for its horrendous energy footprint due to the inherent subjectivity of determining what constitutes a justifiable usage of energy.

Omid argued that we all have different views on what qualifies as frivolous or non-essential activity. So while bitcoin’s value is secured by the seemingly wasteful expenditure of energy on bitcoin mining, it cannot go unnoticed that the centralised dollar world is secured by the fiat of the government, which is itself secured by spending on the US military and defence complex, which hugely exceeds bitcoin’s energy consumption.

Unsurprisingly, many commenters disagreed with the take, accusing it of classic whataboutism — a rhetorical deflection technique made famous by Russian propagandists during the Cold War to undermine Western criticism of the Soviet Union.

Given the heat, we figured it would be worthwhile to get Omid to defend himself in person, so we’ve invited him to be our guest in this week’s Twitter Spaces chat.

We’re looking to have a robust debate that covers all sides, so please do spread the word to anyone who makes a good case one way or the other. And do get involved. We will be aiming for some active participation and taking questions throughout.

For more details click here. Or follow @izakaminska, @ajb_powell or @senoj_erialc on Twitter.