TOBY SHAPSHAK: Is bitcoin causing global warming?
Not only may it be a bubble; the cryptocurrency is being likened to other threats to the environment
As bitcoin prices surged through US$15,000 last week it ignited debates about cryptocurrencies, not least whether they have reached their mainstream moment and are a bubble that is about to burst. Underpinned by blockchain — which most observers identify as the real star of the show — bitcoin is on an upward streak this year that has risen as quickly as Steinhoff’s plunged last week. It was $1,000 a coin at the beginning of the year. Bitcoin’s surge in value has prompted many smug geeks and cryptocurrency pundits to gloat about this new technology, the currency it enables and, especially, how much money these early adopters have made. It’s not unlike a digital gold rush. The frenzy of activity has followed the slow years of painstaking introduction of a new way of thinking about what money is and how it will one day work. Suddenly mainstream investors, stockbrokers and ordinary people realised there was money to be made and jumped on the bandwagon. Anyone who lived through the initi...
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