- Bitcoin's energy cost - 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Sam.

Have you seen my lottery ticket, Sam?

I seem to have lost it somewhere...

Is this another one of your

get-rich-quick schemes, Neil?

People invent all kinds of

ways to make a lot of money

quickly and with little effort.

Well, if you really want to

get rich quick, maybe you

should copy technology

tycoon Elon Musk. Recently,

he invested one and a half

billion dollars in the

cryptocurrency, bitcoin.

Bitcoin has made some people

very rich, very quickly, but

as we'll be hearing in this

programme, it's not

without its critics.

Creating bitcoins, a process

known as mining, uses huge

amounts of electricity and

green campaigners are now

questioning bitcoin's impact

on global energy use.

But before we find out more,

it's time for my quiz question.

What year was bitcoin first

released? Was it...

a) 2009, b) 2015, or c) 2019?

I'll go for b) 2015.

OK, we ll find out the

answer later in the programme.

In this programme, we are

going to talk about bitcoin.

The use of the virtual currency -

it's all very well for

billionaires like Elon Musk,

but what about the ordinary,

average person - is bitcoin

a good option for them?

Well, that's exactly what BBC

World Service programme Tech Tent

wanted to find out by

interviewing people in the street.

Here's what one bitcoin fan,

Heather Delany, had to say:

I invested in bitcoin a number

of years ago with the initial investment

of only around five dollars it meant that

my risk was essentially the cost of

a cup of coffee and a pastry,

and as somebody who's quite

risk-averse when it comes to

investment, it did allow me to dip

my toe into bitcoin. Over time I was

able to invest at various points as I really

see bitcoin as more of a

long-term investment and part

of my overall pension plan.

Heather describes herself as

risk-averse - she wants to

avoid risks as much as possible.

By only investing five dollars,

she was able to dip a toe into

bitcoin - try doing something

slowly and carefully to test

whether she liked it.

Over time, Heather's bitcoin

investment became part of her

pension plan - a financial plan

funded by your salary to save

money for when you retire.

So, everything seems to be

working out for Heather.

But the recent buzz around

bitcoin has also highlighted another,

less positive side of the

story - bitcoin's

environmental footprint.

Mining bitcoins, the complex

process that creates new coins,

uses a lot of electricity.

Recent estimates show that bitcoin

has now overtaken the entire

annual electricity use of Argentina!

Michel Rauchs works at Cambridge

University's Centre for Alternative

Finance which monitors bitcoin's

electrical consumption. Here he

is in conversation with BBC

World Service's, Tech Tent:

Bitcoin consumes just a colossal

amount of electricity and now

whether that electricity

expenditure is really worth the

benefits, I think that really

depends on how you value bitcoin

itself but just looking at the

electricity consumption, I think

we need to put things a bit

into perspective - so, on the one

hand if you compare it to a

country like Argentina, it's

just incredible, awe-inspiring -

on the other hand, if you compare

it to, for example, home

appliances that are always on - on

standby but not being used - in the

US alone, that consumes twice as

much electricity on a yearly

basis as the entire bitcoin network.

Michel thinks that to assess

bitcoin's energy use we must

put things into perspective -

find the true, objective

value of something.

Comparing bitcoin's energy use

to a huge country like

Argentina sounds monstrous.

But looked at another way,

bitcoin only consumes half the

electricity used by all US

televisions and other home

appliances left on standby -

which means powered on and

ready to work when needed.

So maybe the best

get-rich-quick scheme is to

save money on your electricity

bills by turning off your TV, Neil.

Well, it's got to be easier

than mining bitcoins - which

reminds me...

... of your quiz question. You asked

what year bitcoin was first

released, 2009, 2015 or 2019.

And I said b) 2015.

Which was the wrong answer,

I'm afraid, Sam!

It was first released in 2009.

So maybe we'd better keep buying

lottery tickets. After all, it's

a pretty good get-rich-quick

scheme - a way to make a

lot of money, quickly.

Let's recap the other vocabulary

now. Someone who is risk-averse

doesn't like taking risks.

If you dip a toe into something,

you test it out slowly and

carefully to see how it feels.

A pension plan is a way of

saving money for your retirement.

Putting things into perspective

means assessing the real importance

of something, often by comparing

it to something similar.

Like comparing the energy use

of bitcoin with the energy used

by electrical appliances left

on standby - ready to be used.

And that's all we have time for.

Bye for now!

Bye bye!