sorry.

Jeff found a genie in a bottle Who said, “I can give you anything you ask” “You can have your wishes three And a million more for free It’s unlimited, just set me to the task.”

Well, Jeff thought a while, Said, “I want houses, “I want boats, I want fancy modern art, I want tickets to the Met, I want my own private jet, And a rocket into space just for a start.”

Well, the genie waved her arms and made it happen His every wish bolted from the blue And folks all over town grew enamored, gathered ‘round To admire the man whose wishes had come true

They said, “Let’s hear it for the man who has everything! By good fortune he’s been set so far apart.” “Yeah, let’s hear it for Jeff who has everything! ‘Cause his wishes are only at the start.”

Well, Jeff heard their shouts and he grew worried He said, “Everybody’s getting in my way.” The genie smiled as before, “You’ve got a million wishes more. You can even give a bunch of them away.”

Well, Jeff got confused and sorta quiet ‘Til he finally said, “I have just one wish more.” “I am satisfied, so I wish that you would die So you cannot grant wishes anymore.”

Well, the genie’s eyes got big and sad and shiny ‘Til she finally said, “Your wish is my command.” And with an effervescent sigh, she disappeared before his eyes And no wishes were ever granted there again

the usual argument is that the blockchain consumes a lot of energy, and it does.

(perhaps you think NFTs are evil for reasons unrelated to carbon emissions. if so, ignore the rest of this post and do share your reasons)

according to this source, an ethereum blockchain transaction has a CO2  cost of about 110kg. that’s a lot!  plane trips routinely emit way more than that, though. would you call someone evil for taking a plane instead of a train, or instead of not travelling at all if that’s an option?

what about carbon offsetting? climeworks asks for about 125 usd to offset that much carbon (climeworks is unusually expensive as carbon offsets go, but also their numbers are a less suspect). would you call someone evil for not giving away 125 usd to carbon offsets if they can afford to do so?

what about having an unusually carbon-expensive lifestyle? is someone evil for turning the AC on more often than they need to? for driving to work instead of biking? for not being vegan?

Etherium is one of the less bad cryptocurrencies when it comes to carbon emissions, and it’s still dumping over a weeks worth of an average US household’s electricity consumption on a single transaction. That’s any purchase or sale at all. 

Sending your friend some cash? Week of electricity. Want to buy yourself a meal? Week of electricity. It lays out very plainly on the site that it’s the same as 244,773 VISA transactions for a single etherium transaction. It is not 244,773 times more CO2 heavy to take a plane instead of a train, or eating meat instead of vegan, or running the AC more.

Bitcoin is close to 10x higher than that. That is the per person equivalent of taking a flight from New York to London every single time that currency is used to buy or sell anything. That is hideously wasteful in search of profit, and it is absolutely evil. There’s no other word for that kind of waste. 

This is all just the crypto side of it, which is also particularly rife with scams, instability, market manipulation, and flagrant pump and dump schemes. It’s unregulated--if someone steals everything from you you have no legal recourse at all. Coins have failed, exchanges have failed, massive hacks, you name it. People who have literally created cryptocoins are decrying it.

NFTs themselves hit all the hallmarks of a multi level marketing scam or, more charitably, the beanie baby craze where people are pouring their savings into something they are convinced is going to make them rich in the future, so long as new buyers keep showing up forever! And if that doesn’t happen then suddenly a lot of people have a lot of beanie babies or tulips or bored apes that are worthless because no one wants to buy them now and the price tanks. 

As shareholders would put it, they’re all left holding the bag, and we’re all stuck dealing with the obscene amounts of CO2 emissions spent on something that is now utterly worthless.