Hello. This is 6 Minute English from
BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.
And I'm Sam.
Have you seen my lottery ticket, Sam?
I seem to have lost it somewhere...
Is this another one of your
get-rich-quick schemes, Neil?
People invent all kinds of
ways to make a lot of money
quickly and with little effort.
Well, if you really want to
get rich quick, maybe you
should copy technology
tycoon Elon Musk. Recently,
he invested one and a half
billion dollars in the
cryptocurrency, bitcoin.
Bitcoin has made some people
very rich, very quickly, but
as we'll be hearing in this
programme, it's not
without its critics.
Creating bitcoins, a process
known as mining, uses huge
amounts of electricity and
green campaigners are now
questioning bitcoin's impact
on global energy use.
But before we find out more,
it's time for my quiz question.
What year was bitcoin first
released? Was it...
a) 2009, b) 2015, or c) 2019?
I'll go for b) 2015.
OK, we ll find out the
answer later in the programme.
In this programme, we are
going to talk about bitcoin.
The use of the virtual currency -
it's all very well for
billionaires like Elon Musk,
but what about the ordinary,
average person - is bitcoin
a good option for them?
Well, that's exactly what BBC
World Service programme Tech Tent
wanted to find out by
interviewing people in the street.
Here's what one bitcoin fan,
Heather Delany, had to say:
I invested in bitcoin a number
of years ago with the initial investment
of only around five dollars it meant that
my risk was essentially the cost of
a cup of coffee and a pastry,
and as somebody who's quite
risk-averse when it comes to
investment, it did allow me to dip
my toe into bitcoin. Over time I was
able to invest at various points as I really
see bitcoin as more of a
long-term investment and part
of my overall pension plan.
Heather describes herself as
risk-averse - she wants to
avoid risks as much as possible.
By only investing five dollars,
she was able to dip a toe into
bitcoin - try doing something
slowly and carefully to test
whether she liked it.
Over time, Heather's bitcoin
investment became part of her
pension plan - a financial plan
funded by your salary to save
money for when you retire.
So, everything seems to be
working out for Heather.
But the recent buzz around
bitcoin has also highlighted another,
less positive side of the
story - bitcoin's
environmental footprint.
Mining bitcoins, the complex
process that creates new coins,
uses a lot of electricity.
Recent estimates show that bitcoin
has now overtaken the entire
annual electricity use of Argentina!
Michel Rauchs works at Cambridge
University's Centre for Alternative
Finance which monitors bitcoin's
electrical consumption. Here he
is in conversation with BBC
World Service's, Tech Tent:
Bitcoin consumes just a colossal
amount of electricity and now
whether that electricity
expenditure is really worth the
benefits, I think that really
depends on how you value bitcoin
itself but just looking at the
electricity consumption, I think
we need to put things a bit
into perspective - so, on the one
hand if you compare it to a
country like Argentina, it's
just incredible, awe-inspiring -
on the other hand, if you compare
it to, for example, home
appliances that are always on - on
standby but not being used - in the
US alone, that consumes twice as
much electricity on a yearly
basis as the entire bitcoin network.
Michel thinks that to assess
bitcoin's energy use we must
put things into perspective -
find the true, objective
value of something.
Comparing bitcoin's energy use
to a huge country like
Argentina sounds monstrous.
But looked at another way,
bitcoin only consumes half the
electricity used by all US
televisions and other home
appliances left on standby -
which means powered on and
ready to work when needed.
So maybe the best
get-rich-quick scheme is to
save money on your electricity
bills by turning off your TV, Neil.
Well, it's got to be easier
than mining bitcoins - which
reminds me...
... of your quiz question. You asked
what year bitcoin was first
released, 2009, 2015 or 2019.
And I said b) 2015.
Which was the wrong answer,
I'm afraid, Sam!
It was first released in 2009.
So maybe we'd better keep buying
lottery tickets. After all, it's
a pretty good get-rich-quick
scheme - a way to make a
lot of money, quickly.
Let's recap the other vocabulary
now. Someone who is risk-averse
doesn't like taking risks.
If you dip a toe into something,
you test it out slowly and
carefully to see how it feels.
A pension plan is a way of
saving money for your retirement.
Putting things into perspective
means assessing the real importance
of something, often by comparing
it to something similar.
Like comparing the energy use
of bitcoin with the energy used
by electrical appliances left
on standby - ready to be used.
And that's all we have time for.
Bye for now!
Bye bye!