Web Summit in Rio and senior citizens on Bitcoin, AI and ESG goals
This week in tech was dominated by elderly gentlemen: the god of investing Warren Buffett (92) and his apostle Charlie Munger (99), President Joe Biden (80) and the youngster Geoffrey Hinton (75, now ex-Google). They were all relevant, for better or worse, in the areas I look at with interest: AI, crypto and ESG targets. And a report from the Web Summit in Rio de Janeiro, with a very different, much younger audience.
Bitcoin tax makes no sense
This week President Biden announced that his administration is considering introducing a tax on Bitcoin miners in the amount of 30% of their energy costs. I personally do not own Bitcoin due to energy use, but this is an example of the kind of ill-conceived legislation that makes climate legislation measures generate unnecessary resistance. There needs to be a general overhaul of the tax system so that businesses and citizens pay taxes not only based on sales, profits, wealth and income, but also on pollution and resource consumption.
My former shareholder and mentor Eckart Wintzen argued back in the 1990s for a tax on “extracted value from the planet”. That would make much more sense than just a tax on Bitcoin mining, diesel cars or nitrogen emissions. The thinking is too small and too isolated, but I read almost nothing of that in the…
