VMware CEO not a fan of BTC: “Bad for Humanity”

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Pat Gelsinger is not a fan of SegWitCoin (BTC). The CEO of VMware, the company which provides several business software products, recently spoke with Fortune about several dangers of technology, and singled out BTC for a few reasons.

As he sees it, blockchain technology itself isn’t harmful, but the application of BTC on it has become very problematic. He noted two specific problems he has with the coin: it’s use for illicit activities, and the energy consumption of BTC mining.

On the first topic, he noted his own perception that BTC is used mostly for illegal activities. On the second, he said:

“It takes the energy of a home, half-a-home a day, to do a single entry into a Bitcoin ledger. It’s climate intolerant, it is so extreme, it is bad design.”

As a conclusion, he just doesn’t see much of a point in BTC. It’s quite simply “bad for humanity,” he said.

His comments are a little bit of a mixed bag. He’s certainly correct that BTC has been corrupted by those with criminal intent. The digital asset has been specifically hamstrung by its developers to limit its use and obscure who’s using it. As a result, it has no utility, been deemed a storage of value rather than a currency, and been limited to use by the worst elements of society.

Where it starts to get hazy is in his comments on mining. BTC mining itself is pointless, as the coin has no utility and does not properly reward its mining community, so what’s the point really? In his assessment that BTC mining itself is a crime against the environment, he’s not that wrong.

But to say that all crypto mining is climate intolerant is incorrect. It’s been shown in the recent past that the mining industry helps to motivate the creation of more renewable sources of electricity, and is increasingly becoming a net positive to the environment as it does so.

What might help sway Gelsinger’s opinion was if he found the only Bitcoin blockchain with real utility, Bitcoin SV (BSV). As the only Bitcoin to follow Satoshi’s original vision, it’s creating a new currency for the world, and data ledger as well, creating many new applications that can make the businesses of the world more efficient and solve many of the tech problems he’s worried about.