Bitcoin consumes more electricity than Argentina(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Bitcoin consumes more electricity than Argentina
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952
93 comments
Though youtube is mostly doing 'useful' work in the process, bitcoins consume energy by existing.
YouTube has probably wasted more human energy and potential than any other platform. I mean, don't get me wrong, I could crush a video of a monkey riding on a Segway right now. But it's an endless stream of videos algorithmically presented to be maximally addictive. Fun times, and the people on here are probably the ones that can most resist the siren lure of a beautiful teenager pouting at the camera or someone opening a box of consumer electronics. But, first do no harm.
The electricity angle on BTC is, let's admit it, pretty dumb. If people were worried about CO2, like, for reals, we would be talking about concrete, and trying to find something less CO2y for our roads. People want to talk about culture, and approve or disapprove of what they like or dislike. So yeah, if you don't like Bitcoin and want to sniff at it, go ahead and stuff a plastic straw in its nose and call it a seaturtle. You can tweet about it on a platform that uses a comparable amount of electricity, and cause a few servers to get spun up to get your trending hashtag to the concerned masses.
If you actually givea crap about CO2 (unlikely, but possible), become a materials scientist, or advocate for the funding thereof, or fight for more nuclear powerplants. Stop making your ethical decisions based on aesthetics.
The electricity angle on BTC is, let's admit it, pretty dumb. If people were worried about CO2, like, for reals, we would be talking about concrete, and trying to find something less CO2y for our roads. People want to talk about culture, and approve or disapprove of what they like or dislike. So yeah, if you don't like Bitcoin and want to sniff at it, go ahead and stuff a plastic straw in its nose and call it a seaturtle. You can tweet about it on a platform that uses a comparable amount of electricity, and cause a few servers to get spun up to get your trending hashtag to the concerned masses.
If you actually givea crap about CO2 (unlikely, but possible), become a materials scientist, or advocate for the funding thereof, or fight for more nuclear powerplants. Stop making your ethical decisions based on aesthetics.
I presume most people who use Bitcoin consider the wealth made from it useful.
Do people "use" bitcoins? Right now it seems like something your betting on will eventually be useful.
Bitcoin holders don’t want Bitcoin to be useful for spending or transacting, or even selling. Previous attempts to increase the block size, a trivial modification, have failed to gain traction.
They only want Bitcoin useful for two things: Buying and holding. These actions drive the price up. As long as no one is using or selling Bitcoin, the price stays high.
Between the high transaction fees ($8 right now), the deflationary nature, and the “HODL” narrative, everything about Bitcoin was designed to disincentivize actually using it. It’s designed for hoarding and speculating.
They only want Bitcoin useful for two things: Buying and holding. These actions drive the price up. As long as no one is using or selling Bitcoin, the price stays high.
Between the high transaction fees ($8 right now), the deflationary nature, and the “HODL” narrative, everything about Bitcoin was designed to disincentivize actually using it. It’s designed for hoarding and speculating.
This true for everyone who profited from pollution such as many oil tycoon/deforestation/etc, but they are not typically held in high regards.
Most people don't use Bitcoin, and most who use it (from what I see), just want to sell it at a higher price than they bought it. Only a minority of Bitcoin users use it for anything practical like payments.
The same could be argued for a Ponzi scheme: it is useful for the people at the top that have taken money from others, and not so useful for the people that have lost money by buying in later on.
The more interesting question is what value Bitcoin has created for society besides acting as a speculative good.
The more interesting question is what value Bitcoin has created for society besides acting as a speculative good.
The people who hold btc consider the wealth made from it useful. BTC functions precisely as well as a payments system if the price is cut by 99%.
It seems like you believe bitcoin has absolutely no use at all. Why would you think that?
They never claimed Bitcoin had “absolutely no use at all”
The point is that Bitcoin is designed to be inherently power-inefficient. Proof of work systems rely on the work being both difficult to calculate and useless.
Even if Bitcoin transactions went to 0 tomorrow, the system would still consume more energy than Argentina just to keep everyone’s balance.
Worse yet, it the power consumption goes up every year because the system incentivized it.
The point is that Bitcoin is designed to be inherently power-inefficient. Proof of work systems rely on the work being both difficult to calculate and useless.
Even if Bitcoin transactions went to 0 tomorrow, the system would still consume more energy than Argentina just to keep everyone’s balance.
Worse yet, it the power consumption goes up every year because the system incentivized it.
> Even if Bitcoin transactions went to 0 tomorrow, the system would still consume more energy than Argentina just to keep everyone’s balance.
Do you have to do proof of work when there are no transactions?
My understanding was that the PoW was done to place transactions on the block chain. If nothing has changed, nothing has to be done. The entire system can be offline and archived if we have 0 transactions.
Do you have to do proof of work when there are no transactions?
My understanding was that the PoW was done to place transactions on the block chain. If nothing has changed, nothing has to be done. The entire system can be offline and archived if we have 0 transactions.
Sure, provided everyone agrees there have been no transactions and what the end result was. The PoW is necessary to ensure this consensus, but it would indeed become obsolete if people found a different way to form a consensus of the final state (ending bitcoin).
I assumed by him saying youtube was 'useful' by serving content and saying bitcoins merely exist, he was implying bitcoins do no useful work at all - simply not true.
The parent claims Bitcoin is not using the power for useful work. Which is entirely true. The vast vast vast majority of electricity for Bitcoin goes to hashing random numbers where the output has no value.
Your first link seems to imply that bandwidth use is the same as data center use. YouTube and other streaming platforms are generally served from edge locations and use last mile bandwidth and do not constitute large CPU costs when compared to bandwidth.
This comparison is almost certainly off by orders of magnitude.
This comparison is almost certainly off by orders of magnitude.
For more articles on Bitcoin and Energy Consumption, see the Yes, Bitcoin is a Ponzi page [1] collecting many articles over the years on the gigantic CO2 and electronic waste environmental disaster. [1] https://github.com/openblockchains/bitcoin-ponzi
> CO2
In many places Bitcoin is mined electricity is co2 free.
Generally, there are no reasons why electricity needs to emit co2: nuclear power plants can produce enough electricity to power all bitcoins in the world.
> electronic waste environmental disaster
As well as any other consumption. Bought a new car while old one if still running? You damaged the environment.
To reduce the damage to the environment, garbage tax can be introduced, so market can decide what’s more important and less damaging, bitcoins or a new PlayStation.
Bitcoins might be useless, but don’t blame it for all the problems in the world.
In many places Bitcoin is mined electricity is co2 free.
Generally, there are no reasons why electricity needs to emit co2: nuclear power plants can produce enough electricity to power all bitcoins in the world.
> electronic waste environmental disaster
As well as any other consumption. Bought a new car while old one if still running? You damaged the environment.
To reduce the damage to the environment, garbage tax can be introduced, so market can decide what’s more important and less damaging, bitcoins or a new PlayStation.
Bitcoins might be useless, but don’t blame it for all the problems in the world.
> In many places Bitcoin is mined electricity is co2 free.
And that electricity could otherwise be used to displace the use of electricity that generates co2.
And that electricity could otherwise be used to displace the use of electricity that generates co2.
No, electricity cannot be efficiently transferred over large distances or where there are no power lines with enough capacity. In certain places unused electricity is just lost.
If you are generating electricity in places where it cannot be used then you are causing needless damage to the environment and you should certainly stop doing that.
The idea that the majority of the energy used for bitcoin is generated in such places has no real basis in fact.
The idea that the majority of the energy used for bitcoin is generated in such places has no real basis in fact.
If you don't generate power and hydro power plant, you just overflow it, there is no damage in consuming this electricity.
If sun is shining, and you don't generate solar electricity, if you heat it, and that's it, there's no damage taking solar electricity.
And so on.
> The idea that the majority of the energy used for bitcoin is generated in such places has no real basis in fact.
It is based on fact. For example: "In so doing, the CoinShares team found that bitcoin miners were using a disproportionate share of renewables." https://www.vox.com/2019/6/18/18642645/bitcoin-energy-price-...
But the original idea that bitcoin is a gigantic CO2 disaster is definitely not based on facts.
If sun is shining, and you don't generate solar electricity, if you heat it, and that's it, there's no damage taking solar electricity.
And so on.
> The idea that the majority of the energy used for bitcoin is generated in such places has no real basis in fact.
It is based on fact. For example: "In so doing, the CoinShares team found that bitcoin miners were using a disproportionate share of renewables." https://www.vox.com/2019/6/18/18642645/bitcoin-energy-price-...
But the original idea that bitcoin is a gigantic CO2 disaster is definitely not based on facts.
> If sun is shining, and you don't generate solar electricity, if you heat it, and that's it, there's no damage taking solar electricity.
Don't use solar panels where the electricity from them can't be fully utilised, they have an environmental cost to build.
Don't use solar panels where the electricity from them can't be fully utilised, they have an environmental cost to build.
At certain places they need to find someone to use the excess, that is why we even see on exchanges price for electricity going negative.
Slightly terrifying thought is that given the distributed nature of the software, noone really controls this as a whole, by design.
So how far can this go?
So how far can this go?
If major countries started making its use illegal, its value would plummet and so would the incentive to mine. Not saying I hope that happens, just that it’s one route to stopping it.
According to who? If we assume normal supply/demand rules apply (because why wouldn't they?), the countries which ban bitcoin will have to buy bitcoin for a larger sum, to take into account that the trading is now illegal. Because the demand won't disappear just because you make it illegal, we've already seen how this works in practice with illicit drugs.
Because drugs aren't a speculative good.
Drugs have a purpose beyond trading. Currency does not. I fail to see how these are comparable.
[deleted]
You could make it illegal, but there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it, and have no way for anybody to know that you performed a transaction (not even governments). So fundamentally, sure making it illegal will make the hype less attractive, but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing.
But it's fundamentally unstoppable, that's its main selling point.
But it's fundamentally unstoppable, that's its main selling point.
> there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it
only if you stay within the ecosystem, but then the moment you want to spend money in real life you need to basically resort to money laundering.
Now, that may not be a problem for some users, but it'd be a serious one for most people, and the price would plummet.
only if you stay within the ecosystem, but then the moment you want to spend money in real life you need to basically resort to money laundering.
Now, that may not be a problem for some users, but it'd be a serious one for most people, and the price would plummet.
The reality is that most Bitcoin users don’t use the blockchain and they don’t care to.
They buy Bitcoin in their exchange like Coinbase or Robinhood, they watch the price in the exchange, and they sell in the exchange.
Transaction fees are currently in the $8 range. Losing your password or having it phished away will irreversibly lose all funds. The average person doesn’t care about being their own bank. They only care about seeing the number go up, so they stick to exchanges.
If the exchanges were cut off, Bitcoin would still exist. But the demand would disappear from average people, and the price would fall.
They buy Bitcoin in their exchange like Coinbase or Robinhood, they watch the price in the exchange, and they sell in the exchange.
Transaction fees are currently in the $8 range. Losing your password or having it phished away will irreversibly lose all funds. The average person doesn’t care about being their own bank. They only care about seeing the number go up, so they stick to exchanges.
If the exchanges were cut off, Bitcoin would still exist. But the demand would disappear from average people, and the price would fall.
There are other ways to kill that market - heavy regulation on crypto exchanges and regulation on high energy usage via environment laws. Users will go away if it's both unprofitable to use/mine and if they can't find a reasonable exchange.
> but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing.
You're confusing Monero and Bitcoin. Those are completely different cryptocurrencies.
You're confusing Monero and Bitcoin. Those are completely different cryptocurrencies.
There is no reason to make Bitcoin illegal. Just set up a carbon tax at the amount it costs to remove carbon from the air and build renewables. At that point who cares what happens or how people use their resources.
If it's environmental impact justifies making it illegal what else could potentially be on the chopping block with the same logic?
Videogames also run GPU hardware full pelt, so does creating the majority of what you see on the screen for a Marvel movie. How much of the worlds resources are burned daily encoding video for social media.
Videogames also run GPU hardware full pelt, so does creating the majority of what you see on the screen for a Marvel movie. How much of the worlds resources are burned daily encoding video for social media.
Bitcoin is unique in that the system itself is designed to inefficiently burn energy doing deliberately useless proof of work.
We can “whatabout” other energy consumers all day, but the bottom line is that everything else is incentivized to use a little energy as possible. Even your GPU example would only benefit from less energy consumption (less heat, faster clock speeds)
Meanwhile, Bitcoin consumes more and more energy all of the time, without ever producing any more transactions.
We can “whatabout” other energy consumers all day, but the bottom line is that everything else is incentivized to use a little energy as possible. Even your GPU example would only benefit from less energy consumption (less heat, faster clock speeds)
Meanwhile, Bitcoin consumes more and more energy all of the time, without ever producing any more transactions.
I think the main use rn is to flight capital from countries with restrictions like China.
That likely makes Tesla carbon neutral, all the good things they made to the environment by pushing electric cars and now they put over a billion on energy waste.
Isn't green public transport better for the environment than electric cars? I understand they went for cars because it's Elon's vision and he doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that would ride in the subway.
Didn't Elon create the Boring Company to ride in a subway - albeit one where there is only one car and it's his car?
Yes but getting Americans to use public transport is one of the worlds greatest challenges.
If I had a Tesla, I might charge it using a coal-powered power plant...
Do you have a “charcoal-powered” power plant at your house? Or do you use the power grid like everyone else, which is a mix of sources that is gradually migrating to clean energy?
If you had a fossil-fuel powered car, you would definitely burn fossil fuels to go anywhere. And every time you used the brakes, none of that energy would be re-captured.
Suggesting that electric cars are bad because they might use some amount of fossil-fuel produced energy is a really bad false equivalency, and missing the point of electric cars.
If you had a fossil-fuel powered car, you would definitely burn fossil fuels to go anywhere. And every time you used the brakes, none of that energy would be re-captured.
Suggesting that electric cars are bad because they might use some amount of fossil-fuel produced energy is a really bad false equivalency, and missing the point of electric cars.
I believe that it is a power plant that switches between natural gas & coal from time to time (When you see the nasty yellow smoke, it is coal, I believe, which is probably even worst then a gasoline-powered car).
discussed yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26088455
Hm. This article is rather terse.
> The energy it uses could power all kettles used in the UK for 27 years, it said.
Comparisons like this only say "one thing consumes more power then another thing". But that's only the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't tell the whole story.
The article doesn't go on to ask the bigger questions.
What's the fraction of global power consumption that's dedicated to Bitcoin? What's the fraction of fossil fuel based versus renewable power consumed by Bitcoin? In what respects does Bitcoin power consumption affect pricing of power on the energy market? Does Bitcoin power consumption directly affect power availability in households and industries? How does this compare between different regions across the globe?
Arguably, mining Bitcoinis going to have a massive environmental hit if a miner relies on power generated by a coal plant, or a hydrothermal plant. Two extreme examples come to mind would be a "dark" mining operation in a non-descript sub-urban building in mainland China, versus a mining operation in Iceland.
To my mind, Bitcoin as a "power hog" isn't the primary issue. The big issue is energy production, delivery and consumption as a whole. Bitcoin is the business case that painfully shows the shortcomings and the inequities in today's energy markets.
I think Bitcoin should prompt us to find answers to these questions.
> "It turned around and spent $1.5bn on Bitcoin, which is mostly mined with electricity from coal. Their subsidy needs to be examined."
That's just token support on the part of Tesla. Moreover, the problem with this criticism is that it attacks a brand, and does not address the underlying problem.
Arguably, Tesla or Apple or Samsung could also be condemned for using natural resources such as rare metals which come with a massive environmental impact as well.
All of that is - ultimately - an example of large private actors externalizing the costs, the impact, associated with their products and services towards society and the biosphere. And that's not a new tale. I think that Tesla buying $1.5bn in and of itself is rather inconsequential towards driving this notion home.
In that regard, the article fails to show the bigger picture and inadvertently ends up painting investing in Bitcoin as "morally wrong". Something which - historically - has always been the case (see: Usury - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury). Only now, it uses a weird, nonsensical argument - "it could power all kettles used in the UK for 27 years" - to make that case.
> The energy it uses could power all kettles used in the UK for 27 years, it said.
Comparisons like this only say "one thing consumes more power then another thing". But that's only the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't tell the whole story.
The article doesn't go on to ask the bigger questions.
What's the fraction of global power consumption that's dedicated to Bitcoin? What's the fraction of fossil fuel based versus renewable power consumed by Bitcoin? In what respects does Bitcoin power consumption affect pricing of power on the energy market? Does Bitcoin power consumption directly affect power availability in households and industries? How does this compare between different regions across the globe?
Arguably, mining Bitcoinis going to have a massive environmental hit if a miner relies on power generated by a coal plant, or a hydrothermal plant. Two extreme examples come to mind would be a "dark" mining operation in a non-descript sub-urban building in mainland China, versus a mining operation in Iceland.
To my mind, Bitcoin as a "power hog" isn't the primary issue. The big issue is energy production, delivery and consumption as a whole. Bitcoin is the business case that painfully shows the shortcomings and the inequities in today's energy markets.
I think Bitcoin should prompt us to find answers to these questions.
> "It turned around and spent $1.5bn on Bitcoin, which is mostly mined with electricity from coal. Their subsidy needs to be examined."
That's just token support on the part of Tesla. Moreover, the problem with this criticism is that it attacks a brand, and does not address the underlying problem.
Arguably, Tesla or Apple or Samsung could also be condemned for using natural resources such as rare metals which come with a massive environmental impact as well.
All of that is - ultimately - an example of large private actors externalizing the costs, the impact, associated with their products and services towards society and the biosphere. And that's not a new tale. I think that Tesla buying $1.5bn in and of itself is rather inconsequential towards driving this notion home.
In that regard, the article fails to show the bigger picture and inadvertently ends up painting investing in Bitcoin as "morally wrong". Something which - historically - has always been the case (see: Usury - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury). Only now, it uses a weird, nonsensical argument - "it could power all kettles used in the UK for 27 years" - to make that case.
Another relevant comparison is, how much power and other resources are used by all the financial institutions that perform a similar function to the Bitcoin network for storage and transfer of fiat currencies?
Given bitcoin is doing about 7 transactions a second, you might have trouble finding a financial institution small enough.
I guess a very small hedge fund would probably cover it, one with about 15-30 people working at the organisation in total, they probably fit in a small office in London.
I guess a very small hedge fund would probably cover it, one with about 15-30 people working at the organisation in total, they probably fit in a small office in London.
But is transactions the right metric? Maybe we should compare it by total value, or smth.
For example a national gold reserve does even fewer transactions, but it has power, security, etc. National bank doesn't do many transactions.
Or lets compare it to something useless, how muxh power is used by casinos.
Or better yet: all unused idle devices in the US use more power than bircoin does.
For example a national gold reserve does even fewer transactions, but it has power, security, etc. National bank doesn't do many transactions.
Or lets compare it to something useless, how muxh power is used by casinos.
Or better yet: all unused idle devices in the US use more power than bircoin does.
Casinos generate significantly more useful economic activity.
Bankrupt homeless gambing addicts forced into pedaling drugs are good for economy?
Hundreds of service worker wages are good for the economy. You could argue that they would be better employed elsewhere and I wouldn't disagree, but bitcoin doesn't even meet that standard.
"there are just under half a million problem gamblers who have their lives damaged by debt, depression, family breakdown and, in the worst cases, suicide." - that's for uk
Drug dealers, brothels and mafia also create job. The economic impact of casinos is clearly negative.
Drug dealers, brothels and mafia also create job. The economic impact of casinos is clearly negative.
Now do the environmental impact of an Argentina's worth of electricity generation.
Why do you have this agenda that you must prove that casinos are better than bitcoin, are you a casino pitbos?
Do you have any evidence that casinos consume less power than bitcoin does? In Las Vegas, casinos consume a fifth of all electricity.
Do you have any evidence that casinos consume less power than bitcoin does? In Las Vegas, casinos consume a fifth of all electricity.
I'm finding your attempt to avoid dealing with the impact of bitcoin amusing. What are you, a bitcoin investor?
In general it's a bad principle to try and justify environmental impact caused by one thing by pointing at environmental impact of another thing.
In general it's a bad principle to try and justify environmental impact caused by one thing by pointing at environmental impact of another thing.
I'm finding your attempt to avoid dealing with the impact of bitcoin amusing. What are you, a bitcoin investor?
It doesn’t matter really because making a few thousand people rich is noth worth even a millionth of a fraction of the current energy usage.
Thank you for writing a comment about environmental impact that is actually well thought out. I really appreciate it.
What's usually missing from these conversations is that the moment clean energy becomes cheaper than fossils, bitcoin miners will instantly switch to it. So yeah it's bad right now, but the problem will likely resolve itself (unlike in many other industries where there is significantly higher friction in switching to clean energy).
Clean energy capacity consumed by Bitcoin is clean energy capacity that can’t be used to take fossil fuel plants offline.
No matter how you look at it, Bitcoin’s energy usage is additive.
And no, there isn’t much barrier for other industries to switch to clean energy. They use the same power grid as everyone else. In fact, it would be ridiculous if Bitcoin miners were using clean energy that was somehow divorced from the power grid in a way that made it unusable for anything other than Bitcoin.
No matter how you look at it, Bitcoin’s energy usage is additive.
And no, there isn’t much barrier for other industries to switch to clean energy. They use the same power grid as everyone else. In fact, it would be ridiculous if Bitcoin miners were using clean energy that was somehow divorced from the power grid in a way that made it unusable for anything other than Bitcoin.
Of course it's additive, but potential clean energy supply is not capped at current levels.
To clarify whit an example what I meant re other industries: In order for transportation (cars, trucks, ships, planes) to switch to clean energy, they have to replace their fossil-based vehicles. Bitcoin mining rigs run just fine on clean electricity, hence the lower friction to switch.
To clarify whit an example what I meant re other industries: In order for transportation (cars, trucks, ships, planes) to switch to clean energy, they have to replace their fossil-based vehicles. Bitcoin mining rigs run just fine on clean electricity, hence the lower friction to switch.
Driving up the price of clean energy that could be used for other applications instead...
I don't know the net social value of bitcoin or how to compare it to other applications, but it's fair to be critical of it, at least.
I don't know the net social value of bitcoin or how to compare it to other applications, but it's fair to be critical of it, at least.
For miners it's economical to expand into any energy source cheaper than the average used in the network. (Simplified) That means instead of making clean energy and using in houses, miners are first in line for the extra load on the cheap sources and we have to keep burning fossil fuels too support the load which existed before. That's not a path to resolving anything.
There's higher friction in industries to switching to cheaper electricity?
But the question still stands: Is Argentina-levels of energy (now) whether "clean" or not, equal to not using something based around PoW and the inevitable burning of energy.
(IMO) It's bad by design.
But the question still stands: Is Argentina-levels of energy (now) whether "clean" or not, equal to not using something based around PoW and the inevitable burning of energy.
(IMO) It's bad by design.
I'm curious if there are other approaches to artificial scarcity of decentralized digital assets.
Its design is based in thermodynamics and math. It’s the best design out there, regardless of what amount mostly to invalid comparisons based on misunderstanding the potential utility of BTC.
So is monster truck design. That doesn't mean it's productive.
Such a worthless fad.
Tax carbon when it's extracted and we wouldn't need to debate the utility of its various uses.
[deleted]
I wrote a blog post [0] on the subject of Bitcoin and pollution. Hope you like it.
Tl;dr: I make the point that Bitcoin is mostly a store of value, and if it can replace Gold for that function, it would be great for the environment, as Gold mining and storing/trading pollutes far more.
[0]: https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
Tl;dr: I make the point that Bitcoin is mostly a store of value, and if it can replace Gold for that function, it would be great for the environment, as Gold mining and storing/trading pollutes far more.
[0]: https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
BTC actually has a purpose unlike many many other software products that are just pure waste and net loss to society (FB).
I don't disagree that FB is mostly a waste (the chat and photo/video sharing are probably useful to some people) but on the other hand BTC has absolutely no utility. They are just computing arbitrary hashes and the result of this computation is useless to anybody.
Yeah, it's purposefully wasting energy. Facebook is only incidentally wasting energy as a side effect.
Perhaps you should compare the usefulness of bitcoin versus Facebook when you consider the energy usage of both, intentional or otherwise.
I find both useless.
Unlucky I guess.
I would hazard a guess you find crypto overall to be useless.
https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2021/why-master...
I would hazard a guess you find crypto overall to be useless.
https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2021/why-master...
The question that matters is:
Does the existence of Bitcoin allow better coordination such that the global productivy raises 2%?
And I would with no doubt answer: YES.
Central Banks are distorting the function of Money and bringing economies to their knees. A decentralized and digital form of Money would force the system to self-heal.
Does the existence of Bitcoin allow better coordination such that the global productivy raises 2%?
And I would with no doubt answer: YES.
Central Banks are distorting the function of Money and bringing economies to their knees. A decentralized and digital form of Money would force the system to self-heal.
Can you cite an econ paper with that 2% claim? Economists would most certainly not have missed such a massive productivity factor.
I'm guessing it's not true, nor anywhere near true, for such a tiny asset.
I'm guessing it's not true, nor anywhere near true, for such a tiny asset.
> It’s pretty clear by now that, looking just at costs (without getting into the detail of the actual type of pollution), mining gold is ~50 times more expensive than mining bitcoins AND running the bitcoin network. Bitcoin pollutes far, far less than gold.
> mining gold is ~50 times more expensive than mining bitcoins
> It’s even harder to compare the type of pollution created by mining gold versus mining bitcoin. What’s easy to do is to simply state that mining gold is MUCH WORSE than mining bitcoins. Mining gold is an environmental disaster. Poisoned waters, solid waste, endangered communities, and so on. Producing gold for one wedding ring alone generates 20 tons of waste.
https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
> mining gold is ~50 times more expensive than mining bitcoins
> It’s even harder to compare the type of pollution created by mining gold versus mining bitcoin. What’s easy to do is to simply state that mining gold is MUCH WORSE than mining bitcoins. Mining gold is an environmental disaster. Poisoned waters, solid waste, endangered communities, and so on. Producing gold for one wedding ring alone generates 20 tons of waste.
https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...
This is taking the Bitcoin "mining" metaphor too far. The correct comparison for Bitcoin energy usage or environmental impact is obviously other software, not real-world mining.
I mean, Bitcoin also produces less GHG than making concrete, but, so what?
I mean, Bitcoin also produces less GHG than making concrete, but, so what?
It could be that mining gold solely to hold value and Bitcoin are both wasteful and of dubious moral quality.
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...