Opinion. CoinDesk Chief Insight Columnist DavidZMorris highlights the logical flaws and deceptive framing of the New York Times' recent Bitcoin mining exposé – the latest in a sustained attack on Bitcoin’s use of electricity.
the bulk of the article’s factual findings seem to describe failures in a specific load-balancing incentive program in Texas. The program is offered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, and is available to customers in any industry. The Times piece seems to take issue only with its use by bitcoin miners.
I further want to be clear that I respect the investigative work done by reporters and researchers here. They deliver some interesting facts and insights. But those were seemingly not enough to satisfy the agenda of Times higher-ups: Based on the text, it seems likely reporters were pressured to reshape their reporting into something it is not.
. Anyone in the program can collect a fee for curtailing peak energy usage. In this case, a Bitdeer facility collected $18 million over four days.The article’s sweeping claims that “the public pays the price” for bitcoin mining largely hinge on this single state program. The article’s problem with bitcoin mining, if you can really call it that, appears to be that miners are too good at doing the thing that the Texas incentives are designed to encourage – turning off at times of peak load.
. It is held together by bailing wire and duct tape after decades of libertarian deregulation that led public and private power companies to starve their systems of investment, both in halted expansion and deferred maintenance.The Texas power grid is alsofrom the rest of the U.S. electricity grid. This suggests the price effects documented by the Times would be more acute in Texas than elsewhere because the Texas grid cannot access backup electricity across state lines.
That is, the smelter quite likely closed before Bitcoin was invented. It is certainly sad that this “cut the legs out of the community.” But in what possible way is that relevant to the story being told here about bitcoin – other than to emotionally manipulate readers into associating the two?
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