To flesh this out: I'm not arguing that BTC has no value, nor that it has no externalities, so I really don't understand what motivates your reply. I don't feel that there's anything nihilistic about pointing out the logical flaw in saying, "oh the concept of Bitcoin has 12% more inherent value now than yesterday because the price went up by that much." I recognize that the article is about electricity, but I'm not sure how you get from my comment to electricity. If Bitcoin crashes tomorrow, does that mean that the inherent value (or conversely, the societal burden) of the concept went down?
Not at all. But in this case, the broader cost of Bitcoin scales with its price.
When you say "the broader cost of bitcoin" you're talking about electricity right? Aside from the important fact that "cost" isn't "value", there are a couple problems with that. First of all, many people are finding arbs in energy (eg, you live or work in a dorm, lab, or other building where don't pay an electric bill) and using free electricity to mine. That provides liquidity/fungibility by contributing to transactions, without incurring any cost to the miner. Second, people and entities with large early reserves of bitcoin have an incentive to mine even when the energy cost is greater than the mining return, because a better functioning bitcoin is more likely to attract further inflows that impact the price upward.
This is a bit nihilistic. Bitcoin’s value has reallocated a huge amount of technical talent and resources in the global economy. It also has a growing carbon footprint. These give the public, and by extension its members, legitimate exposure to its downsides. Given that exposure, it’s valid to consider managing it.