News of the week

Cryptocurrency and greenhouse gas emissions

“Do you have any cryptocurrency?”

“No.”

That was my tax guy on the phone, asking the question that he has been asking every year for the last four or five years. And that’s me with the response that I’ve given every time he asks. Our tax guy is really nice and is pretty good at spotting when my wife and I can take advantage of a deduction. He’s only doing his job by asking about cryptocurrency. The answer is always the same. You might say that I’m not a cryptocurrency kind of guy. First of all, I’m suspicious of anything that starts with the word “crypt.” And folks who know me will tell you that I am not an early adopter. As a matter of fact, I’m not an adopter of any sort. I never had a Betamax, never bothered to get a VHS; I’ve stayed away from microwave ovens, dishwashers, and it took a lot of persuading from my wife for me to get a cell phone. The phone in our apartment, the one I prefer to use, the one I talk to our tax preparer on, is a slimline built in 1979. My general attitude is that if something came along after 1981 (except for maybe Lake Street Dive), I’m not interested. So, no, I’m not one to jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.

Lake Street Dive, maybe the one thing to come along since 1981 that I really like

What cryptocurrency is

Imagine if tomorrow everybody opened up their Monopoly games and started using the play money as a real means of exchange. You could use those yellow, pink, and orange pieces of paper to buy grapefruit at the grocery store or you could buy a new car. A big pile of the paper could buy you a house. Using make believe money as real money has been around for a while, in limited ways. Bus tokens aren’t money, but they get you a ride on a bus. People bet with poker chips in casinos. Coal towns in Appalachia paid their miners in scrip, not cash, as a means of keeping them in a state of servitude.