No one is denying that gold is 100% free.

But let's be honest, Fort Knox doesn't require 0.5% of the world's energy consumption (and increasing) just to continue existing.

False equivalencies don't help this argument. Yes, we know everything requires energy. No, that doesn't make it all the same.

Plus, gold was created by a supernova so you should take that energy into account as well.

> gold was created by a supernova

This is a tangent, but it's more fun than the usual Bitcoin fetishizing and bashing.

There is building evidence that neutron star collisions, not supernovae, are the primary source of the universe's gold [1].

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/did-neutron-stars-or-supernov...

Wow thank you. This is the sort of content I come here for.

And there's a great PBS spacetime video exclusively covering the creation of heavy elements, and why they no longer think it's solely the result of supernovae [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmgMboWunkI

This comment is probably sarcasm, but just in case it was meant seriously, I just want to make it clear that expending the energy of another supernova to create a currency would be, overall, a Bad Thing at this point in time.

Unless you've got some dyson spheres lying around that you're not telling me about, I'm going to politely request that bitcoin advocates not expend more energy than we have in the entire world just so that they can diversify their investment portfolios.

Type V civilizations do it for the memes.

Nice one

Actually though, I wonder if there's an analogy that could be drawn between the real origin of gold (supernova) and bitcoin (mining a block). Both are created as dense byproducts of a large compression event (bitcoin: transactions; supernova: the rest of the star). ?

There's nothing special about gold, every other heavy element is also a by-product of supernovae. So, the analogy only works on a dully contrived poetic level, unless you also want to compare Bitcoin meaningfully with lead.

I like your comment. May I use it on my daily life without referencing you explicitly ?

Yes, first one’s free.

Objection. Fallacy - false equivalence.