Governmental policies in money and energy underpin most of today’s food shortages[1] and soaring prices[2] across consumer goods and services, at least according to bitcoin mining company Cathedra Bitcoin.
While the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central banks’ central banker, blames[3] 40-year-high U.S. inflation levels on pandemic-induced supply chain bottlenecks, Cathedra has laid out an alternative view in its latest annual letter to shareholders[4].
“We believe the root causes of these issues are quite simple: unsound money and unsound energy infrastructure,” the letter reads.
Unsound Energy
Cathedra argues that much of the current mainstream line of thought[5] is influenced by a Malthusian[6] approach, which purports that progress is “zero sum” and resources are finite, thereby leading experts and governments to tilt favorably for policies that judge human action by whether it disturbs the natural world.
However, the bitcoin miner subscribes to Prometheanism[7] — the belief that progress is “positive sum” and human creativity and technology allow resources to be employed in novel ways that preserve the natural world while benefiting the human species. Prometheans evaluate human action by its ability to trigger human flourishing, a line of thought that guides all of Cathedra’s business decisions.
Energy abundance is necessary[8]. While different energy sources bring different benefits and tradeoffs to the table, a cohesive plan to enable maximum energy throughput is a necessity for any nation to thrive. Short-sighted policies that subsidize intermittent renewables and shutter stable forms of generation lead to energy insecurity and higher energy costs, Cathedra outlines in its letter.
“This is the underlying logic of these ‘net-zero’ policies: make energy more expensive so that we use less
