Bitcoin’s inconvenient truth

Recode Daily

Recode

Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the Recode Daily archives (April 20, 2021): Cryptocurrencies are more popular than ever. But they require a mind-boggling amount of electricity to operate. The Verge's Justine Calma (@justcalma) explains whether crypto can go green. Read Justine’s piece on the movement to make crypto go green here Enjoyed this episode? Rate Recode Daily ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. What do you want to learn about on Recode Daily? Send your requests and questions to recodedaily@recode.net. We read every email! Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Recode Daily by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode was made by: Host: Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) Producer: Will Reid (@WillR56) Engineer: Paul Mounsey Support Recode Daily by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.6	Hi everybody, Adam here. This week we're revisiting some of my favorite episodes of Recode Daily.
0:36.6	And because cryptocurrency has been in the
0:38.5	news lately, I wanted to highlight an episode about Bitcoin. Bitcoin is becoming more and more
0:43.9	mainstream for a lot of reasons, and Elon Musk is one of them. The billionaire's tweets have caused
0:48.7	wild fluctuations in the already volatile cryptocurrency. Musk tweeted earlier this month that Tesla is backing away from Bitcoin
0:56.0	because of concerns with the cryptocurrency's carbon footprint.
0:59.3	Since then, the price of Bitcoin has fallen tens of thousands of dollars.
1:03.6	Rico Daily did an episode on the environmental impact of Bitcoin during our Earthweek series earlier this year.
1:08.9	Here's Teddy Schleifer and the Verges Justine Kama talking Bitcoin.
1:16.2	Everywhere you look, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are sliding into mainstream life.
1:22.4	Companies like Tesla are starting to accept Bitcoin as payment for its cars.
1:26.9	The NBA is selling digital trading cards
1:30.0	powered by cryptocurrency tech. And just last week, Coinbase, which is a startup that makes
1:35.0	buying and selling cryptocurrency easier, just went public, debuting at a valuation of $85 billion.
1:43.0	More and more people are using cryptocurrencies and interacting with
1:47.4	the tech that makes crypto possible. But there is one downside. Cryptocurrencies use a lot of
1:55.5	energy. And as they go more and more mainstream, the downsides can become bigger and bigger.
2:01.4	They can make it more difficult to fight climate change.
2:05.1	Justine Kalma is a climate reporter at The Verge, and she's helped to answer the question of
2:08.9	whether crypto can ever go green.
	...

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