Bitcoin environmentalist Daniel Batten said a “single commentary” in 2018 by Alex de Vries, founder of Digiconomist, was the origin of “all junk science on Bitcoin’s environmental impact” since then.
“We found patient zero,” Batten said in the Dec. 12 X thread.
While Batten didn’t point to the specific commentary, he has previously criticized a May 2018 report from de Vries titled “Bitcoin’s Growing Energy Problem.”
Digiconomist is a platform “dedicated to exposing the unintended consequences of digital trends.”
Batten said data from litmaps found that energy-related news reporting and other academic commentaries on Bitcoin frequently referred back to de Vries’ metric, leading to “Bitcoin gaslighting in the mainstream media.”
Daniel Batten’s litmap tracing the origins of Bitcoin’s energy consumption FUD to Alex de Vries. Source: Daniel Batten
“Much of the population was misinformed over many years, and as a result many investment committees, regulators and policymakers still do not know that 13 of the last 15 papers support the environmental benefits of Bitcoin.”
Digiconomist runs a “Bitcoin Electronic Waste Monitor” claiming that Bitcoin has produced 40.97 kilotonnes of electronic waste over the last 12 months, reaching 230.1 grams per transaction.
However, Batten, a climate tech venture capitalist who has been focused on debunking Bitcoin FUD, said the energy use per transaction metric is “fundamentally flawed.”
“Bitcoin energy use does not come from its transactions, therefore it can scale transaction volume exponentially without increasing emissions.”
Batten said the method used by de Vries has been debunked in several academic journals, including ResearchGate, ScienceDirect and Nature.
“That's why 96% of mainstream media outlets [...] are no longer gaslighting Bitcoin's environmental impact.”
Many of these outlets have started covering Bitcoin’s environmental benefits, Batten said, pointing in a Dec. 12 X post to Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Forbes and the Financial Times.
Despite the progress, Batten said there is still “much re-education work to do” before there can be mainstream adoption of “Bitcoin mining as part of climate action.”
Cointelegraph contacted de Vries for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.
Related: Why tech giants like Amazon may hesitate to adopt Bitcoin
About 54.5% of Bitcoin mining activities come from sustainable resources, according to the Bitcoin ESG Forecast.
Mainstream media began to increasingly criticize Bitcoin’s energy consumption around the time Digiconomist started reporting on Bitcoin in 2018.
For example, the Washington Post referred to Bitcoin as an “energy glutton” that could harm Earth’s climate in an October 2018 report.
“It could catapult the planet to dangerous levels of warming if it continues its rapid growth,” the Post said, citing “new research” without disclosing the source.
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