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The issue of ethics of Bitcoin has gained growing interest with different viewpoints emerging. This article argues that Bitcoin is ethical.
With the growing number of cryptocurrencies, the question of ethics regarding their use continues to gain momentum. Bitcoin, the largest digital currency, has been a significant focus. This article explains why Bitcoin is ethical. Before addressing the ethics of Bitcoin, have you heard about the Quantum AI trading bot? Go to Quantum AI to learn more about it.
Bitcoin and Environmental Issues
The world was shocked when the world’s richest man and owner of Tesla Company announced that his company wouldn’t accept Bitcoin as payment. According to the flamboyant billionaire, he realized that Bitcoin was consuming substantial quantities of fossil fuel energy to produce, leading to environmental concerns.
Bitcoin mining is indeed highly energy intensive. Miners often have to invest a lot of energy to mine just a single coin. Unfortunately, most of this energy comes from fossil fuel sources. With growing environmental concerns, including global warming and climate change linked to fossil energy use, it is understandable that Musk and others have raised some ethical concerns regarding Bitcoin.
However, while the environmental concerns would make Bitcoin unethical in terms of causing harm to the environment, it is essential to understand some facts. Bitcoin miners know the environmental problems and are doing a lot to address them. They are investing heavily in renewable energy and locating their operations in appropriate areas where the population is low and renewable energy sources are plenty.
Moreover, miners have produced over 19,145,187.5 Bitcoins already, leaving only 1,854,812.5 or less than 9% percent. And this means that with the maximum limit of Bitcoin that will ever exist is 21 million, only a tiny amount is left. After reaching that limit, no more Bitcoin mining will continue. Therefore, the environmental concerns about high energy consumption will be over in just a few years.
Bitcoin and Utilitarian Ethics
Ethics is broad and different theories of ethics exist with different viewpoints. One popular ethical theory is utilitarian ethics. Generally, this ethical theory considers the consequences or impacts of something to determine if they are righteous. Specifically, practical ethics holds that actions that generate the most significant benefit for most people are ethical.
Applying utilitarian ethics to the ethics of Bitcoin, the obvious conclusion is that Bitcoin is ethical. People use Bitcoin as a payment means. Anyone can use Bitcoin in this manner. The purpose of money is to facilitate transactions and enable people to meet their needs. Bitcoin does this well.
Additionally, Bitcoin is ethical from a practical perspective because it benefits everyone who wants to access financial services. One of the major problems of the traditional centralized monetary system is that it leaves out many people for different reasons, including distance and lack of certain documents. Bitcoin allows everyone to open a Bitcoin wallet, transact, invest, get loans, and other financial services.
Bitcoin’s Advantages
To determine whether Bitcoin is ethical, we can look at its advantages vis-à-vis disadvantages. Some disadvantages of Bitcoin include high volatility, unregulated nature, and facilitation of criminal activity. Some benefits include enhanced efficiency in international transactions, enhanced security and privacy, and the potential for generating high returns.
Without arguing about the advantages and disadvantages, Satoshi Nakamoto developed Bitcoin as a better replacement for the existing centralized financial system. And this came in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 financial crisis that revealed how more giant corporations and institutions could interfere with and capture the financial sector and the economy. Bitcoin’s decentralized system eliminates this risk to the advantage of the majority.
Take Away
Despite some arguments against Bitcoin’sethicality, more reasons show that Bitcoin is ethical. And this is mainly from a practical ethics perspective.
Image by Eivind Pedersen from Pixabay
