🐻 Why Bitcoiners love this anti-Bitcoin artwork
Plus, Coinbase wants to build an inflation-pegged coin
GM friends 👋. Happy Monday. We’re saying goodbye to March this week and heading into the second quarter of the year. We’ve been off to a great start already, haven’t we?
We saw more crypto companies collapse and go bankrupt, a reincarnation of the 2008 financial crisis and more money being printed from thin air 🫡. But hey, Bitcoin is finally decoupling from this tradfi mess and performing like the true hedge against inflation it was meant to be.
HOLY
The #Bitcoin hash rate is going absolutely bonkers.
— Dylan LeClair 🟠 (@DylanLeClair_)
Mar 24, 2023
👋 New here? Subscribe to receive our newsletter 2x / week + exclusive content | ✅ Follow us on Twitter, Instagram & Youtube
In this issue:
📣The big story of the week. Bitcoin’s greatest enemies are its greatest marketers.
🗞️ In other news. Silicon Valley Bank gets sold for $500 million to First Citizens Bank and Coinbase wants to build an inflation-pegged flatcoin.
📣The big story of the week
Bitcoin’s greatest enemies are its greatest marketers
We’re not sure if this is good or bad news, but it seems like Bitcoin’s unofficial marketing team is growing in size!
The #bitcoin marketing team
— Relai - we're hiring! 🇨🇭 (@relai_app)
Mar 18, 2023
Let’s meet the new recruits from the past week, shall we?
Bitcoin marketing really picked up this week
— Jebus.eth (@jebus911)
Mar 25, 2023
Greenpeace brings peace to the Bitcoin community
The Bitcoin community can be quite divided at times. We saw that with the recent emergence of Ordinals (Bitcoin NFTs) that drove a bigger wedge between the community on the future vision of Bitcoin. But last week, Bitcoiners finally came back together and made peace thanks to this ‘bad-ass’ skull artwork created by Greenpeace 💀.
Everything is good for #Bitcoin.
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor)
Mar 25, 2023
Made out of electronic waste, this skull sculpture was created in collaboration with artist Benjamin Von Wong. We can all agree that it looks pretty cool, right? Several crypto folks praised Von Wong’s work, but what’s it got to do with Bitcoin?
Some climate activists think #Bitcoin is just fake internet money they can safely ignore.
The truth? Bitcoin is causing dangerous amounts of real-world pollution from its ravenous consumption of fossil fuels, all due to its outdated code.
The solution? #ChangeTheCode
— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa)
Mar 23, 2023
Well, the electronic waste used is actually supposed to represent the millions of computers wastefully used for Bitcoin mining. This artwork is part of an anti-crypto campaign run by Greenpeace. The activism initiative, ‘Change the Code, Not the Climate’ has been running for a while now with the goal to bring awareness to Bitcoin’s non-environmentally friendly mining practices.
NEW: #Bitcoin is causing MASSIVE amounts of pollution and has become a major roadblock in our fight to phase out fossil fuels. So we teamed up with @thevonwong to create this giant 💀 with laser eyes to help us raise awareness and spark change.
WATCH and SHARE:
— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa)
Mar 23, 2023
There has long been a debate over Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) system for validating transactions because of its high energy consumption. It has been estimated that Bitcoin mining consumes around 100 terrawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually. To put that in perspective, that is more than the annual energy consumption of entire countries like Argentina or the Netherlands.
Bitcoin mining electricity consumption:
Just higher than Argentina
If Bitcoin were a country, would rank #29.
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer)
Apr 21, 2021
Since Bitcoin is open-sourced, anyone, including Greenpeace can actually submit a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) to suggest changes. The proposal would go through a review process and would have to win over several stakeholders, such as the developers, miners and the general Bitcoin community.
Anyone can #ChangeTheCode.
Just like anyone can change the rules of chess.
Go ahead, good luck finding anyone to play with.
— Ian Forbes (@ianforbes21)
Mar 24, 2023
So, instead of taking their activism seriously, the Bitcoin community did a reverse UNO card on Greenpeace by adopting the skull as Bitcoin’s unofficial mascot.
Careful with the hate! 😍
— Lightning Network+⚡️ (@BTC_LN)
Mar 24, 2023
This propaganda campaign turned out to be a great marketing piece for Bitcoin and a peacemaker amongst the community 👍️.
But what’s also interesting to note is that this initiative was partially funded by Ripple’s co-founder, Chris Larsen who contributed $5 million to the lobbying campaign.
Just fyi: This anti #Bitcoin campaign is sponsored by the centralized shitcoin company #Ripple#XRP...
You can't make this shit up...
— sunnydecree (@sunnydecree)
Mar 25, 2023
Why is he going against the crypto community though? According to Larsen, this is not an “anti-Bitcoin” or “anti-competitor” move. He claims that he wants to see Bitcoin succeed, but is worried that its mining practices will turn investors away.
Well, that sounds absolutely convincing 🤔.
Just follow the money, Von. Once you figure out it wasn’t Greenpeace money, but @chrislarsensf money, you’ll understand why you were initially hired.
— Preston Pysh (@PrestonPysh)
Mar 25, 2023
At least Von Wong, the artist of the Skull of Satoshi has admitted that he was wrong about the issue at hand and it’s not as black and white as he initially believed.
I made the Skull believing that Bitcoin Mining was a simple black-and-white issue. I’ve spent my entire career trying to reduce real-world physical waste, and PoW felt intuitively wasteful.
Of course, I was wrong.
Few things in the world are black and white. Dumb me. /4
— Von Wong (@thevonwong)
Mar 25, 2023
All in all, this has been great for Bitcoin as we continue to hold steady at $28,000 💪. Thanks for the free marketing Ripple!
🗞️In other news
💸 SOLD! The FDIC sells bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank to First Citizens Bank for $500 million. SVB depositors will now be moved to the First Citizens Bank who will take over $72B in loans and $56B in deposits.
🛠️ Coinbase wants to develop an “inflation-pegged flatcoin”. Rather than pegging to the US dollar, a flatcoin would peg to the “price of living” by tracking the consumer price index (CPI) and inflation data.