Per capita cheese consumption in the US

Between 2017 and 2022, global Bitcoin mining consumed electricity in increasingly staggering quantities while Americans quietly, steadily ate more cheese, the two activities correlating at 0.9667 across just six data points. It is tempting to construct a theory in which the heat generated by mining farms is somehow ripening wheels of aged cheddar, but intellectual honesty prevents it, if only barely. What is certain is that both Bitcoin and cheese reward patience, benefit from a controlled environment, and are poorly understood by most people who are very confident about them. The blockchain has no opinion on Gruyère. This may be its only limitation.

With only six data points, an r of 0.9667 is essentially meaningless as a statistical signal—it would be surprising if two gently upward-trending series over six years did not correlate highly. US per capita cheese consumption has grown gradually over decades, reaching roughly 42 pounds per person annually by 2022, driven by pizza culture, snacking trends, and artisanal cheese adoption. Bitcoin mining electricity consumption grew from near-zero to an estimated 100+ TWh annually over the same short window, driven by price appreciation and miner expansion. The only shared driver is time itself.

Six data points is not a dataset; it is a coincidence wearing a lab coat. When n equals 6, correlation coefficients are less a statistical finding and more a Rorschach test for the person reading them.