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People Assembly on Bitcoin

Reading list and summary/report


Thank you for participating in this people assembly with the title ‘Bitcoin: system change or climate change’. We picked this topic because we sensed a lot of growing polarities on the topic - a growing gap between big believers and haters. But most of all, we organise these people assemblies because we are curious towards other perspectives, to hear people voices on the topic and stay open minded and connected to something real - as opposed to facebookposts and tweets.

We are very happy to have you all doing this research with us, for the next two hours. We embrace fully the diversity in this group, visible and unvisible. So a warm welcome to all men, to all women and all non-binary people, to parents, students, married, non-married, people in family situations or single, people in relationships, complex or simple. Welcome to people who feel comfortable in zoomcalls, welcome to people who don’t or are just tired of them. Welcome to people who feel comfortable in English, and to people who don’t. We welcome all cultural backgrounds, all roots, and all life and work experiences that can play a part in this conversation tonight. Welcome to people who feel wise on the topic, who indicated ‘the expert’ option in the registration form, welcome to people who are here to get introduced in the topic, and maybe feel a bit nervous about it. We are aware of how influenced these voices and opinions are by the context and the system we live in, and the access to information.

We would like to invite everyone to listen with an open mind today, to be here in order to learn and discover something you didn’t know before. We encourage curiosity and welcome respectful opinions. We do not believe in a monopoly of the truth but we believe in connection when we keep sharing and taking.

And we open this call with three space rules:

  • There is no monopoly on the truth
  • We are here to learn
  • We are here to stay connected

  1. Welcome and check in
  2. Interview
  3. Break out 1 - worries
  4. Plenary
  5. Break out 2 - opportunities
  6. Plenary
  7. Check out

Reading list


- Intro on bitcoin: https://hellobitco.in
- Intro to blockchain:


- Intro to 'proof of work' or 'proof of stake' (or why does Bitcoin consume so much energy?)

- What is mining? How does Bitcoin work?


- Clear explanation on NFT (non fungible tokens)

(on climate impact)
https://medium.com/@nic\_\_carter

Summary of the people assembly

In short:
There are a lot of worries about the ecological impact of Bitcoin in particular. Although Bitcoin is just a consumer of the energy being produced (still a lot with fossil fuels) it is one of the most inefficient databases in terms of energy use because of the ‘proof of work’ that is required to guarantee the security of the network.

Other technologies exist such as Proof of Stake that require much less energy and that should be favored whenever possible. However, it is likely that there will always be the need for Bitcoin.

Blockchains in general hold a lot of opportunities for the future of decentralised finance and to enable local communities to develop their own currencies.

Break out group 1 with Tuur (I) & Xavier (II)

Concerns (part 1)

  • Are crypto’s desirable
  • Concerns about the motivations of people in cryptoworld
  • We only see the biggest disadvantages
  • Is the money the system or is the system needing the money?
  • Lack of transparency on energy use (hard to get all the info and facts)
  • Proof of work is nonsense - big concern on CO2
  • Everybody seems to say ‘don’t worry about it’
  • Bitcoin biggest worry

Opportunity (part 2)

  • What about we learn from what we’ve done so far to build a new one?
  • Money create behavior, behavior create system
  • Debt the first 5000 years (debt came first, then money)
  • Focus too much on technology, not enough on behaviors.
  • What type of house do we want to build with that hammer?
  • Concerns about going to a new GAFA. China?
  • The blockchain is positive.

Break out group 2 - with Kris (part I)

Concerns (part 1)

  • It’s not accessible enough, people should know about it!
  • Can I trust it? How does it work?
  • Is it good to remove all oversight? Can we still freeze/block assets?
  • Are they really unstoppable?
  • Is transparency always a good thing?
  • Renewable energy - do we really want to use it for this?
  • We still need checks & balances!
  • Are we replacing one bad system for a worse one?

Bitcoin as the worst inefficient database in the world - burning lots of energy and it is scarce

Opportunity (part 2)

Bitcoin is very useful to a lot of people in the world (maybe not to us directly)

Break out group 3 - with Xavier (I) & Kris (II)

Concerns (part 1)
Each transaction cost so much energy? (but not if within the same exchange?)
Je ne suis pas aussi performant pour contribuer au monde quand je dois d’abord me soucier de mettre du pain sur la table.

  • Rules of the game are clear for everyone and transparent.

Seulement 10% de l’argent imprimé va dans la poche des citoyens, 90% va dans la finance.

Bouton facile pour les banques de mettre en avant le côté pollution. E.g. RTBF qui relaie les problèmes de pollution sans analyse fouillée. Pas beaucoup de place dans les médias actuels pour d’autres voix.
Les activistes climats sont pas trop souvent anti technologique?
Schizophrène des banques de parler de la pollution du bitcoin car elles consomment aussi énormément.
Je ne vois pas de mouvement dans la crypto qui pousse pour réduire de 10x la consommation.

Pas d’update de bitcoin possible, compliqué à cause du network effect.

Opportunity (part 2)

  • Money as a mean of expression
  • Interest of being decentralized (politically as well)
  • Bitcoin is the most efficient way to transform energy into prosperity for all
    • Go direct
    • UBI !
    • Smaller groups can decide together on a system of value for them
    • ‘We’ decide what is valuable!
  • Value of community tokens
  • New monetary world currency - stable coin (RAI)
  • DEXE.network -> solidarity compensation of trading
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