Surface level: Mining operations are the energy consumer of last resort. To remain solvent and profitable during the vast majority of it's operation (see: not during hyper-parabolic moves upward), they need to consume energy using the cheapest solutions possible, to keep costs down. This includes:

- Utilizing stranded Methane as energy

- Utilizing stranded oil and gas as energy

As is well documented, both of the above are terrible for the atmosphere, and rapidly accelerate the compounding negative affects on our planet's climate stability. In this way, Bitcoin acts as a Methane and Carbon capture mechanism - it quite literally prevents these gases from entering our atmosphere.

If that wasn't valuable enough, as is, it also then takes that captured Methane (or Carbon), and turns it into an open source value transfer protocol for humanity to access.

Combine all of this, with the previously stated fact that mining operations - MUST - operate at the cheapest margins possible to remain in business during any other period of time aside from hyper-parabolic, upward moves in price (where simply having a machine plugged in "prints" money), the are required to seek out solutions that provide the cheapest energy possible. This means that not only are they incentivized (and during sideways price chop or down moves - REQUIRED) to seek out methane and carbon capturing operations, but also to implement large scale renewable operating mechanisms, such as Solar, Wind, Hydro Electric, Ocean/Wave energy, etc.

This keeps margins low over time and allows the operation costs to utilize "free" energy. It also incentivizes Bitcoin mining operations to invest heavily into renewable energy solutions - making renewables profitable on a large scale for the first time in human existence, while also furthering the development and expanse of energy solutions we so desperately need.

Here are other resources I highly recommend, as it comes to Bitcoin becoming carbon negative, and utilizing renewable energy at large scale:

Bitcoin projected to become first monetary to hit net-zero emissions by 2024 - https://finbold.com/bitcoin-projected-to-become-first-monetary-system-to-hit-net-zero-emissions-by-2024/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20study%2C%20the,newly%20announced%20carbon%2Dnegative%20projects.

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A conversation with environmental scientist Nate Harmon, on utilizing our oceans as giant solar panels to produce value via Bitcoin's network - https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/bitcoin-unleashing-an-ocean-of-energy

A conversation with Troy Cross, on Bitcoin's positive environmental significance for humanity - https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/fighting-the-bitcoin-mining-fud

ESG Analyst Daniel Batten on twitter, with impressive data (I recommend anyone interested in the environment follow him) - https://twitter.com/DSBatten/status/1600643653466492929

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Good luck in your research.

PoS is quite literally the already current broken, mal-incentivized monetary system we currently find ourselves in via fiat. It’s the digital panopticon version of the cantillionaire-fueled nightmare situation we should be desperately trying to move away from. All wrapped up in the word “Blockchain”, at an attempt to ride on the coat tails of the issues Bitcoin already solved - because - of the consensus mechanism specifically being Proof of Work.

Also noticed there’s almost zero talk in this thread of how laughably compromised Ethereum has become post merge to 2.0 - nearly every block is now OFAC compliant, leading itself further down a road of total censorship.

Bitcoin will - 100% - never change its consensus mechanism. It is what makes it a currency backed by physical energy, and what makes the incentives of the entire system work. It bridges the literal physical world into digital space, and back again - which means it can also incentivize the bolstering of our grids as well as also incentivizing massive, MASSIVE amounts of funding flowing into renewable energy. Ethereum does none of these things.

Which adds to the absurd irony of the energy consumption numbers being thrown about this thread - Bitcoin will be carbon negative within 5 years, actually reducing the worlds carbon and Methane output via the conversion of literal atmospheric poison (methane), and carbon, into energy, that then is converted into an open source value protocol for the human race.

Ethereum, on the contrary, only consumes energy. It incentivizes nothing, and solves nothing. It has zero idea of what it actually is - at first it was “faster”, which is now a dead narrative. Then it would “tokenize everything!”, another dead narrative once people realized that a blockchain and its ledger is awful at nearly everything compared to a more centralized database, unless it’s a ledger for money (something Bitcoin has solved and no other centralized, unsecured clone will surpass due to network effects). This recent cycle, it’s play was “DeFi!”, which was legitimately just taking the ICO s-show from 2017 and enabling the ability to cross collateralize every worthless token pumped out into ETH’s ecosystem with one another, all with the hope that with the “magic of blockchain!”…it would return a huge yield.

No one, of course, asked where the yield comes from.

The yield was you. Ask Do Kwon, or Kyle Davies, Zac Prince, or SBF.

And in Ethereum - you’ve always been the yield, and you always will be. It’s recreating power structures with bad incentives and unsound, irresponsible motivations. It using Proof of Work was the only aspect of the entire protocol that incentivized good behavior. That is now gone.

This is an extremely un-researched, cliche, “to the moon bros!” thread, and to be honest, I cannot believe it was actually posted to the internet in the year 2022.

There are near infinite resources to self-educate, now. There is really no excuse, OP.