Governments and legacy financial systems all over the world are discovering that it’s not easy being green. And Bitcoin is no exception. Elon Musk famously reversed his decision to accept BTC as payment for Tesla in May, citing environmental concerns as the reason. But many in the Bitcoin SV world are confident that it can and will be eco-friendly.
Zach Resnick, Managing Partner of venture capital fund Unbounded Capital, is one of many unconcerned BSVers. “We would argue that Bitcoin is perhaps one of the most eco-friendly technologies ever created,” he says.
Zach argues that Bitcoin’s design incentivises miners to find cheap energy to maximise their profits. As renewables are cheaper, they are encouraged to find or create clean, renewable sources of energy.
He also points out that because Bitcoin miners can be located anywhere, they can make use of renewable energy in places that conventional energy customers couldn’t otherwise use.
“You can start up a mining operation with one hundred per cent renewable energy anywhere, really far from any grid and still be able to utilise all the energy efficiently.”
This means that poorer countries can use natural resources, like hydropower, to mine Bitcoin and make money. This was a central argument in Stone Ridge’s annual shareholder letter, which outlines the economic benefits Bitcoin will bring to the world.
On this week’s episode of CoinGeek Conversations, Zach stresses that he thinks we should measure Bitcoin’s energy consumption against the value it brings to the world. He believes that the advantages of the new technology vastly outweigh its environmental costs in the long term.
He also points out that it’s important to remember that not all digital currencies are the same. BSV’s scaling capacity and bigger block size mean that many more transactions can take place per second, and therefore energy per transaction is lower.
“The difference with Bitcoin SV is that it is just wildly more efficient,” says Zach. This was evident at CoinGeek Zurich when nChain CTO Steve Shadders took part in a live demonstration showing node software handling over 50,000 transactions per second (TPS), something he repeated backstage where a throughput of 100,000 TPS was achieved. This contrasts with BTC which can process just seven to nine TPS.
Zach knows first-hand how hard companies in the BSV space are working to make the technology as efficient as possible. In his role at Unbounded Capital, it is his responsibility to spot and invest in exciting companies building on BSV.
“We’re very much constrained by capital, not by opportunities, there’s a ton of incredible entrepreneurs,” he says.
Indeed, many of those entrepreneurs have become successful with Unbounded Capital’s support. Zach believes that one of the things that is “unique about Bitcoin is that you have a much higher percentage of companies that are generating revenue… from the beginning.”
One such example is popular derivative trading platform TDXP which successfully leverages BSV’s micropayment features by allowing customers to trade for a cent or less.
Despite successful investments, Zach says he receives a lot of ridicule for running a BSV ecosystem fund. Comparing the experience with his previous jobs (as a poker player and jazz musician), he jokes that he faces more derision in his current line of work.
But this is changing, according to Zach. He explains that more and more investors are seeing the value of BSV and are directly reaching out to Zach without him needing to get in touch to explain the benefits.
Speaking at the recent CoinGeek conference in Zurich, Zach was certainly confident about BSV’s future, saying “we’re really excited about what we’re seeing in the space today and feel very grateful to be here today at CoinGeek and to be meeting so many of the entrepreneurs.”
Hear the whole of Zach Resnick’s interview in this week’s CoinGeek Conversations podcast or catch up with other recent episodes:
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