The following episode was originally aired on 92.1 The Frog on January 27th, 2022.

Hello, and welcome to The Sunset. My name is Nathan and I’ll be going over a feature story I find interesting and give my thoughts on it.

Last Friday, the value of multiple cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Etherium crashed. According to Bloomberg, the value of Bitcoin dropped by 12%, now worth less than $36,000 dollars per coin. Bitcoin’s value in particular has been dropping since last November, having now lost $600 billion dollars in market value. The overall cryptocurrency market has lost over $1 trillion dollars in value.

For those of you unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies, they are, in theory, a digital currency meant to be unconnected to any world government or bank. In practice, they are more like stocks, an asset you buy that can raise or lower in value. Unlike stocks, cryptocurrencies are produced by “mining,” which is hard to explain but, in short, is a computer process that takes a lot of electrical power to do. This has led to concerns about the environmental impact, as it is estimated cryptocurrency mining uses more electricity than the country of Argentina, according to a 2021 analysis by Cambridge University.

The crash may be related to Russia’s announcement that it was considering banning bitcoin mining last Thursday, according to a report by TechRepublic. The country would join others like China, Iraq, and Egypt in banning the currency. Russia’s reasoning is, in addition to possibly disrupting the energy supply of the country, that it is simply too volatile to be a legitimate investment, and its untraceable nature makes it a tool for criminal activity.

Personally, I think cryptocurrencies are a scam. There are a lot of details that make it hard to get into, but some of the biggest proponents are absurdly rich billionaires, some of which profited greatly from the 2008 economic crash. I agree it’s too volatile to be a real investment, and the power consumption isn’t really being addressed. There aren’t a whole lot of things you can reasonably buy with cryptocurrency besides NFTs, which are themselves a huge scam. I’d stay away from it entirely.

Thank you for listening to 92.1 The Frog.