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First published: Jul 22, 2022, 8:52am EDT
Last edited: Aug 1, 2022, 1:06pm EDT

Anthropocene Calamity, part 5: Sell Bitcoin, Save Lives

This is part 5 of an 11 part series. For the introductory post to set the tone, please see Holy shit things are super bad.

In part 4, we discussed how important it is to focus on your maximum point of leverage, and that the part of the greenhouse gas emissions pie you can make the most dent in is likely not the same as others. My part of the pie, at least right now, is cryptocurrency. I’m the CTO of Storj, a decentralized storage provider with cryptocurrency connections, so that’s my angle.

First off, a quick statement about Storj - Storj is “Airbnb for hard drives,” and I am proud of Storj’s focus on sustainability and the environment. Our architecture does not use a blockchain for storage, though it does use STORJ token on the Ethereum blockchain to pay storage node operators for used hard drive space. We are buying carbon offsets for all STORJ token transactions from anyone, ever, currently amounting to 50 million pounds of carbon on behalf of the wider ecosystem, with a commitment to continue going forward. But it’s better to not emit at all rather than offset, and when Ethereum goes green in September, STORJ token carbon emissions will almost entirely become a thing of the past. Because we don’t build data centers and use excess hardware more efficiently, Storj could be the greenest storage platform on the planet.

As the CTO of a “web3” company, it might come as a shock that I am by this point extremely anti-Bitcoin and anti-Proof-of-Work. So, I’ve created this site to try and explain as clearly as possible why you should explicitly sell all Bitcoin.

Please see my site I launched called Sell Bitcoin, Save Lives. I launched it before the most recent cryptocurrency downturn and got to the front page of a popular tech news website for 11 minutes before I got shadow banned. Guess what, when the cryptocurrency downturn did happen, carbon emissions plummeted! I’m not taking credit at all, but this does validate my argument.

Sell Bitcoin, Save Lives

Check out part 6, the last of the “let’s steer out of the skid” posts for a while: Are you spending your attention and money well?