“It’s not exactly green to require more electricity than the whole of Argentina”

Schadenfreude – the German term for “pleasure at the discomfort of others” – seems to be an endlessly satisfying emotion. I certainly cheered up when I heard that, having moved $1.5 billion into Bitcoin, Elon Musk performed an almost literal volte-face. Anything related to Bitcoin produces a storm of commentary, and likewise Mr Musk, so I didn’t expect a clear representation of his thinking – but when it did emerge, I discovered that he’d understood something I’d figured out ages ago. Mr SpaceX withdrew from BTC because he’d realised that, unlike any other means of payment or retention of wealth at any time in history, cryptocurrencies burn electricity just by existing.

Musk decided that it’s not exactly green to require more electricity than the whole of Argentina, with only increases to look forward to, simply to allow people to buy things online. It would be more efficient and honest to use the underlying megawatts as the thing being traded. There’s even a precedent for this: silver is both valuable and useful, and the silver marketplace is dominated by organisations with uses for the material as well as value to be keeping. Agfa, in Germany, is still in the silver market, even though its main use (for camera films) has declined markedly. Electricity also has uses: most of those produce some