Jeff, really enjoyed the article on nuclear fusion (Wednesday’s issue, The Path Towards Limitless Clean Energy). I've been following this area of energy sector for quite some time and I know you talked about it a good bit at your previous employer. I love your insights on the sector and I can only imagine the impact on the world it will have once this technology becomes scalable.
My questions is this: How will nuclear fusion affect bitcoin mining and what does the bitcoin mining industry look like with nuclear fusion technology at its fingertips? Also, what does this mean for bitcoin at large? Glad you are back! — Jonathan S.
Hi Jonathan,
The question you’ve raised opens the door to an interesting discussion. It’s related to a contradiction that many mistakenly can’t see.
One of the biggest arguments or complaints levied by some against blockchain technology is that it is bad for the environment because “these meaningless cryptocurrencies” require so much electricity to produce.
And yet those same people fail to recognize the immense amount of electricity required to run the data centers needed to run Google’s search engine, or Instagram’s social media application, or their streaming of meaningless YouTube videos to their phones.
The thing for us to understand is that a blockchain network like Ethereum and its smart contracts is just another form of an information technology (IT) network. Whether it is a social media application, a corporate IT network, a silly mobile phone game, or an e-mail system, they all require electricity.
With that said, nuclear fusion will be very beneficial for companies that want to maintain nodes on a blockchain network. Not only is it 100% clean energy, it will become the cheapest form of electricity. After all, nuclear fusion will produce far more energy than is required to maintain a fusion reaction.
This will eliminate the “argument” of blockchain not being “clean,” and it will also make running blockchain networks — or any other network — that much more efficient due to lower cost electricity.
As for bitcoin in particular, it would make bitcoin mining more profitable due to the lower electricity costs.
