As has repeatedly been pointed out, the claim is based on the perception of environmental unfriendliness, so this tangent about the hypothetical existence of a non-harmful one is irrelevant.
The paper described the terms they performed analysis on:
("cryptocurrency" or "bitcoin" or "ethereum") and atl1("energy" or “energy consumption” or
“energy footprint” or “climate change” or “carbon footprint” or "environment" or "environmental"
or “environmental impact” or “carbon footprint” )
So, while they didn't list every niche cryptocurrency, they did include the catch-all phrase. This should capture some of the sentiment about those niche cryptocurrencies (to the extent that people care about them).
> the claim is based on the perception of environmental unfriendliness, so this tangent about the hypothetical existence of a non-harmful one is irrelevant.
It is still relevant given that the grounds of whether if this is true or not needs to be substantiated, as soon as they said:
> Maybe that's unfair, maybe it's not.
The claimant couldn't help dangerously blanket labelling all cryptocurrencies as the problem (and knew it was unfair) and left it up for discussion. They should have just given sources in the first place, informal or not.
> So, while they didn't list every niche cryptocurrency, they did include the catch-all phrase. This should capture some of the sentiment about those niche cryptocurrencies
Given that paper also explored the truth of PoW-cryptocurrencies being bad for the environment (with evidence) and the claimant blanket labelling 'every single cryptocurrency' as being perceived as environmentally bad (without evidence), the truth of whether it this is the case for 'every single cryptocurrency' can be explored in this thread very quickly with evidence.
It isn't that hard. One user in this thread has already defeated your description of a 'hypothetical existence of a non-harmful' cryptocurrency given that it already exists.
The paper described the terms they performed analysis on:
("cryptocurrency" or "bitcoin" or "ethereum") and atl1("energy" or “energy consumption” or “energy footprint” or “climate change” or “carbon footprint” or "environment" or "environmental" or “environmental impact” or “carbon footprint” )
So, while they didn't list every niche cryptocurrency, they did include the catch-all phrase. This should capture some of the sentiment about those niche cryptocurrencies (to the extent that people care about them).