Conference & lunch with Michel Rauchs Digital Assets Lead at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF),

In times of intensified decarbonisation efforts to combat climate change, concerns about the environmental externalities of Bitcoin – and digital assets more broadly – have been mounting among environmentalists, financial institutions, and policymakers. This has sparked a heated debate between supporters and critics about the need for intervention: opponents argue that Bitcoin is a climate disaster responsible for destroying decades of progress made on environmental issues; proponents counter that Bitcoin mining is one of the most sustainable and greenest industries on the planet. Yet neither claim holds up when subjected to the test of evidence. In this talk, we will review a number of popular assertions against the empirical evidence and explore why no conclusive answer can yet be given.