Bitcoin Miners on Track to Use More Electricity Than All of Argentina

Post by cs702 » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #48

cs702 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't have to match the energy burn, just the hash rate (so efficiency matters). Of course, but I don't know how anyone could be a lot more efficient that current miners, who are in a rat race to increase the efficiency of their mining operations. They probably think about energy consumption every waking hour of the day. > You also don't have to do it all at once, you just have to be faster than the network (If…

Re your PS, there will still be an old and new consensus blockchain no matter how fast you calculate the replacement. (that's why it is a "chain", the head depends on all previous values)

Post by BearGoesChirp » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #34

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When energy becomes cheaper, miners can do more mining, leading to an increase in blocks. Given that people are only willing to pay so much for a transaction to complete, there is only so much demand at a certain price point. Once the supply of blocks increases, you eventually have price points where the demand no longer matches the supply. At this point a miner would lower their fee until the demand increases back t…

> a miner would lower their fee They're not "lowering their fee". That's not how it works. They might stop mining altogether, but it can never cost more to include a transaction than not to include it, unless including it pushes out another transaction that pays a higher fee.

Post by cs702 » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #54

cs702 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Re your PS, there will still be an old and new consensus blockchain no matter how fast you calculate the replacement. Yes, of course. In fact, at any point in time there are always multiple blockchains, one for every miner burning energy to add a new block. However, only the longest blockchain (with the greatest proof-of-work) is valid. As soon as there's a longer valid blockchain, the miners discard their individu…

We are kind of talking about different things. I'm talking about how at the protocol level the contents of the longest chain do not matter, it is by rule the "consensus blockchain". It naturally flows from there that as long as you can calculate blocks faster than the network, you can rewrite past transactions, with the speed difference restricting how far back you can rewrite. There's no need to do it in an instant…

Post by thousandautumns » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

mylons wrote: post #49

does anyone else think that articles like this are fueled self interested parties who don't have a stake in crypto? if crypto is here to stay, wont more efficient mining hardware, potentially more efficient software, and things like recent advances in solar relax these fears in reality?

Post by Nursie » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #24

jstanley wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> miners can lower their fees This isn't how fees work. Fees are based purely on supply and demand. The payer sets their fee level when they create the transaction, and it's up to the miners which transactions they will include. Since there is always an excess of transactions, the miners typically select transactions to maximise their payoff. If miners were to "lower their fees", they'd be accepting low-fee transacti…

When energy becomes cheaper, miners can do more mining, leading to an increase in blocks. Given that people are only willing to pay so much for a transaction to complete, there is only so much demand at a certain price point. Once the supply of blocks increases, you eventually have price points where the demand no longer matches the supply. At this point a miner would lower their fee until the demand increases back t…