TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

FOSS Developer @CatalystNZ. #Bitcoin class of '16. Putting Bitcoin into fiat software. Living the dream in .nz since ages ago.

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@PeterMcCormack @Coop_Daniels #WhatAliensDid luvvit

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@LukeDashjr @sunnydecree Nothing to do with BTC vs Fiat. 99% of SaaS providers, personnel services & related reqs of modern startups accept Fiat. Who has the time in startup land to find BTC friendly services? As Blackadder once said, it'd be like trying to find a needle in a giant stack full of needles.

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@sunnydecree ...except not a mil (I wish)

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@sunnydecree Do it. Will be doing exactly the same shortly.

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@lopp @davidzmorris GPT? I'd have thought you'd be using @veniceai, or isn't it as good at doing exactly what you needed here?

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

Sometimes I ask myself if it really makes a difference me spending time debunking poorly researched reports on Bitcoin mining.

Then this happens …

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

Rebuttal of New IMF report on Bitcoin mining emissions

IMF report says "Carbon Emissions from AI and Cryto are surging" then goes on to a detailed report on how regulators should impose "cryptocarbon" tax.

Rebuttal:

Firstly, Bitcion advocates everywhere should pause to reflect on the significance of this moment. With the scientific consensus (9 of the last 10 peer reviewed articles) and mainstream journalism now concluding that Bitcoin mining has significant environmental benefits, those who stand to lose most from mainstream adoption of Bitcoin (IMF, Central Banks) are needing to resort to direct attack-pieces.

Here's a breakdown of why the IMF report is at best poorly researched, at worst propoganda.
https://t.co/DQP9qvqLIC

1. Rhetorical technique: "guilt by association". Let's say you want to criticize Larry, but the problem is that Larry is a good citizen. No problem, you find that Ben, a person who has the same day job and is the same age as Larry, is a criminal. Now you don't have to prove that Larry is of unsound character, all you need to do is say "Ben is a criminal, and Larry is just like Ben"

That's what the IMF report does. It's opening line even says "What do crypto assets and artificial intelligence have in common? Both are power-hungry". Straight out of the guilt-by-association playbook. There is no contemporary evidence in the report that Bitcoin mining produces a rising amount of carbon emissions, but plenty of evidence that AI datacenters' carbon emissions are rising. So AI datacenters serves a purpose, but as we will see later, they are really interested in attacking Larry. Ben is just the pawn in a bigger chess-game.

So the article says "AI datacenter emissions are rising, and Bitcoin is just like AI"

The technique is effective and will fool some people. But its also factually incorrect. BPI has already debunked the myth that AI datacenters and Bitcoin mining centers are comparable in a detailed report.
👇
https://t.co/78YpD39PnP

Further, Rhodes et al showed back in 2021 that flexible datacenters such as Bitcoin mining had a net decarbonizing impact on grids, whereas inflexible datacenters such as AI had a net carbonizing impact.
👇
https://t.co/TzxEGhcgXJ

2. Make apples for oranges comparison

Today, data from a variety of independent sources including the Digital Assets Research Institute shows that as price and hashrate grows, Bitcoin mining emissions have not grown
👇

The IMFs own data sources reveal the same thing. In fact, their data shows that by 2027, crypto's share of global electricity use, and its share of global CO2 emissions will have decreased, while for AI, both will increase.

Hmmm, that was inconvenient! Doesn't really support the thesis they wanted to support which was that Bitcoin was bad for the environment, just like AI.

So what did they do? They created another bar called "high" which indicated the maximum possible range of 2027 projections so that crypto's contribution looked visually higher than it's present-day share.

Where did the "high" estimate come from? Cambridge's hypothetical model of "what would happen if every bitcoin mining operation used coal" (something no industry does, and something Bitcoin mining uses less of than any other industry, and a fuel source Bitcoin mining is moving away from faster than any industry)

See their image from the report below.

They then go on to ask the question in a full length report "Cryptocarbon: How much tax is the corrective tax"
👇
https://t.co/ZiFmTiVapq

If the authors were seriously concerned for the environment, they would have looked at the data and written the paper. "AICarbon: How much tax is the corrective tax". Did they also write this paper? No.

3. Let's look at their detailed report.
11 mentions of the work of Alex de Vries, and a mention of Mora et al. Someone please tell the authors that not even GreenpeaceUSA cite Mora et al's work any more, which was triply-debunked within months of him writing it.

Further, the work of de Vries has been widely discredited, including this peer review article by Sai and Vranken.
👇
https://t.co/pXcY40WBpZ

The paper goes on to quote Cambridge's emissions and energy figures, despite the fact it is widely known (and stated on Cambridge's website) that theire model is no longer current, as it uses data from 2022.

Until we get intellectual honesty from the IMF, apples-for-apples comparisons, eshewing of already-discredited research, use of contemporary datasets, and an acknowledgement that the scientific consensus shows predominantly positive environmental externalities from Bitcoin mining, any reports from this institute should be disregarded as being of a low research-standard; unusable to policymakers and regulators.

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@CoinbaseSupport being amazingly helpful by requesting me to create a new account when I've said *three times* that it won't help me with my Stretto / @CelsiusNetwork distribution request. Case 20060646 if anyone cares.

[Peter McCormack 🏴‍☠️🇬🇧🇮🇪 @PeterMcCormack]

It is worth also remembering that we now have modern colonialism which is economic in nature, ie we get cheap shit by loading debt onto poorer nations.

Check anything @gladstein has written on structural adjustment.

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@mr_morphic All I can imagine as an ex-skater is dropping-in off that dam!

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@PeterMcCormack @_DannyKnowles using AI FTW "..We use these tools to enhance the quality our work and improve the efficiency of our business..." #typo 🤣

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@_DannyKnowles Oh, and I thought @PeterMcCormack was having a giraffe! Been listening since ep 100-something. Gutted, but keen to see what yoy guys bust out next.

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@metlinkwgtn the 4:55 to Waiakane just left Wgtn station without a disabled, elderly lady who had been signaling for assistance for 5m. Not a good look.

[Bitkiwi @Bitkiwi1]

Nice piece @TTOVpodcast.
#Bitcoin provides huge opportunities for all countries but NZ in particular has many things going for it that make the future so exciting.
Get amongst it kiwis, find your place in the #Bitcoin world and get building!
https://t.co/MYDjuZwZzC

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@TTOVpodcast @lightningpaynz How does this service differ from @Strike, which uses the same BTC+LN rails? Or is it a case of Strike being better suited to international remittances and LNPayNZ is just suited to NZD payments?

[Peter McCormack 🏴‍☠️🇬🇧🇮🇪 @PeterMcCormack]

1 down, 2 to go:
- @RealRossU
- @Snowden

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

New full time high

♻️Bitcoin is now at 55.8% sustainable energy use.

✅Highest it’s ever been.
✅Already higher than any other industry
✅Pulling away further as other industries struggle to transition their fuel source.

Source: https://t.co/Qf08cfG3H2
Full story: https://t.co/nJr0TuNewp

[Daniel Batten @DSBatten]

We have current sources within Greenpeace who have been leaking information to us about the #changethecode campaign because while they believe in @greenpeace's mission, they are

* not supportive of @greenpeaceusa's campaign
* question the ethics of taking money from Ripple's executive chair Chris Larson
* think it is damaging the Greenpeace brand
* think either that there are bigger issues to fight, or that Bitcoin is a positive force for counteracting climatechange

Here's what we know
1. @greenpeaceusa intentionally decided to take an extreme position, even one which they realised was at best "sexed up" - at worst not true, because they wanted to "change the overton window"

2. the campaign is widely acknowledged within GreenpeaceUSA to have been a failure. One recent source said "All we have succeeded in doing is uniting the Bitcoin community against us"

3. There was a faction that developed within the ChangetheCode team. Part of the team recognised that the campaign was not working and wanted to pivot to run a more cooperative effort working with people inside the bitcoin ecosystem, and also reviewing their data to make sure that it was contemporary and accurate.

The other faction wanted to double-down and continue, moving into more ad hominum attacks aimed to try to discredit those promoting education of Bitcoin such as Satoshi action.

4. At the same time, @greenpeaceusa's peers, EarthJustice and SierraClub told GreenpeaceUSA that they would not be allocating more resource to help their campaign. Senior people within Greenpeace International continued to ask questions of GreenpeaceUSA's campaign.

5. The original campaign manager of ChangeTheCode was the one advocating for change in the campaign strategy to stop taking an antagonistic stance and start working with people within the Bitcoin ecosystem. But his leadership was not supportive of this pivot. He left GreenpeaceUSA at the start of this year, replaced with a new campaign head who wanted to continue the antagonistic stance towards Bitcoin and Bitcoiners.

This is why the Changethecode website is no longer action, and the @CleanUpBitcoin Twitter handle has been inactive all year.

Current status: the faction remains within GreenpeaceUSA. The campaign has lost most of its steam. It was hoped that the 'reveal' hitpiece on Satoshi Action earlier this year would cause widespread embarrassment to the Bitcoin community, but numerous people in GreenpeaceUSA feel it backfired due to the poor manner in which the research was conducted and the speculative conclusions it drew.

Meanwhile, the artist who created the "Skull of Satoshi" has publicly said that he feels the issue is 'more nuanced' than GreenpeaceUSA had portrayed to him and that he as had "many positive interactions within the Bitcoin community". He advocated strongly for GreenpeaceUSA to work with the Bitcoin community, which was starting to happen until the old faction essentially won the internal battle and returned to its original campaign strategy, despite the overwhelming indication it was not working, causing brand damage and stopping climate-conscious millennials in particular from aligning with GreenpeaceUSA.

[Bitcoin Magazine @BitcoinMagazine]

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Donald Trump vows to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to time served if elected President.

"He's already served 11 years. We're going to get him home."

[TheRuss 🇳🇿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @therussdotcom]

@ryantaggs @pete_rizzo_ @SvetoslavMitko1 Except he never liked the word "evangalist" with reference to his own work. Preferring instead "Educator".