Apolline Blandin, cryptocurrency research lead at the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, joins the show. In this episode:
- The Cambridge AltFin research agenda
- The motivation behind the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
- How they determine Bitcoin's electricity consumption
- How Bitcoin's energy usage can be understood in context
- The genesis of their new geographical mining estimates
- Why high granularity estimates of mining location are so important to determine its energy mix
- How and why Bitcoin hashpower migrates on a seasonal basis
- Why there is so much spare hydro capacity in Sichuan and Yunnan
- Surprising country-level findings
- The most defensible academic approaches Apolline has seen so far
- Why the per-transaction cost estimates of Bitcoin are misleading
- The prospects for wind, solar, and natural gas for bitcoin mining
On The Brink with Castle Island