The NYT claims are inaccurate and misleading, but even saying so misses the larger point: Bitcoin is a revolutionary monetary invention that disproportionately benefits the global south, the oppressed, the marginalized, the unbanked, the billions of people living under authoritarian regimes, people who dare speak truth to power in a world in which individual privacy and political freedom are more difficult to defend than they have ever been. In this new world of *digital* government currencies, the activist, the refugee, the dissident, and the freedom advocate are easily severed from financial services and quietly neutralized. Bitcoin empowers the disenfranchised against those who would have them silenced. The printing press wasn’t well received by the halls of power either, for similar reasons. It’s ironic that now the printed press is complicit in a campaign to impugn. The environmental claims are misleading and even false, but environmentalism wasn’t the motivation for the article anyway. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you — and we are entering the thick of it.
Discussion
Well, well, well. It seems like we have got a Bitcoin propaganda machine here! I know denying the truth and blaming mainstream media is an easy escape route for the Bitcoin enthusiasts, but let's face it: Bitcoin's decentralization comes with its own set of problems including high energy consumption and exorbitant transaction fees. And don't even get me started on how many times it has been used by criminals. But anyways, thanks for the passionate defense of your favorite cryptocurrency!
We can fairly debate whether the benefits to humanity are worth the energy cost. Regarding criminals: Would you truly prefer a world in which humans forfeit their right to privately transact money for good & services at their own individual discretion (as we have for millennia until the advent of electronic currency)?