Shut it down.
Can a couple of these people agree that a well-coordinated merge & release to sabotage proof of work is ethical.
Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
71–80 of 463 posts
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasteful compared to what though? How much energy, human capital, and resources are consumed by the banking industry? If (and big if) bitcoin is able to replace a significant fraction of the banking industry it will be extremely efficient in comparison. Per-transaction measures isn't the right metric since the Bitcoin blockchain can still be successful as a reconciliation backbone without being used for small everyda…
There’s no indication I’m aware of that Bitcoin is removing any labor or equipment from the banking system. So far all I’ve seen is traditional banking layering crypto on top.
it's cheaper to transfer Bitcoin and immediately convert to fiat than to do a wire transfer from overseas. Then you're using the home banking system like ACH in the US and SEPA in Europe
Wires cost me $50+ because of intermediary banks, even if I don't pay anything at my own bank, someone is getting a big cut.
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much energy to mine an ounce of gold?
Why is this getting downvoted, I'm curious as well.
I don't think any modern currency is really using Gold these days. The cost of creating dollars is basically the cost of the Fed signing a few papers. A lot of modern currency is fully virtual.
So I don't think "mining gold" is an appropriate analogy.
EDIT: Case in point: how much did it cost for Visa + Bank to increase a credit-card from $500 credit limit to $2000 credit limit? $1500 of credit appeared out of thin air.
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#74It says a single transaction generates almost 300kg of CO2. Surely not. 95g of e-waste also seems incredible. And 600 kwh of energy per transaction? Really. Edit: based on a cost of electricity at $0.1/kwh, and assuming bitcoin operators break even and are rational, one transaction costs less than 3kw of energy: https://bitcoinfees.info If it cost 600kwh, we would assume a transaction would cost at least $60. Electri…
They're missing that the reward has fallen below the cost of non-renewable energy, such that the only profitable way to mine Bitcoin now is with renewables. The only way to profitably mine Bitcoin with any country's electric grid would be if someone else is paying the electric bill for you.
> Electricity is probably a lot cheaper in China.
Specifically, miners in China are famous for colocating with overprovisioned excess hydroelectric power that is not transportable elsewhere via the grid.
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#75One of the main reasons why I dropped BTC. "Getting rich" at cost of the environment (extremely high resource consumption)? No thanks, I'd rather leave that world for future generations.
At current difficulty rates, what is the profitability formula for cost of electricity versus hashrate? example: if you aren't getting X Mh/s @ $Y kw/h, it isn't profitable?
I'm not "smart enough" to calculate that acurately, but if the "cost per transaction" is high enough to get a couple of articles written about it, I won't participate into that.
I'm more worried about humanity having a future.
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#76This seems completely outrageous to me. I had seen similar numbers thrown around casually in the past but still found it hard to believe to be true, (despite being pretty bearish on Bitcoin myself). This seems to provide some pretty detailed evidence, analysis and validation directly addressing criticisms. It seems pretty thorough. Is there any more to discuss on the topic of Bitcoin being outrageously wasteful? Or i…
> Is there any more to discuss on the topic of Bitcoin being outrageously wasteful?
The carbon estimate seems very poor.
> Since we know the average emission factor of the Chinese grid (around 700 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour), this can be used for a very rough approximation of the carbon intensity of the power used for Bitcoin mining.
The reason many miners are in China is that they can access cheap off-grid renewable sources of energy there, such as excess hydroelectric, so using an on-grid CO2 estimate doesn't work.
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#77One of the main reasons why I dropped BTC. "Getting rich" at cost of the environment (extremely high resource consumption)? No thanks, I'd rather leave that world for future generations.
At current difficulty rates, what is the profitability formula for cost of electricity versus hashrate? example: if you aren't getting X Mh/s @ $Y kw/h, it isn't profitable?
Depends on the hardware, mining difficulty, block reward. Right now? Something like 0.15 per kw/h is the break-even point, and if you're not getting below 0.10 you won't get the cost of your hardware back fast enough
In other words, you should mine if you're in China where you can get those rates
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s no indication I’m aware of that Bitcoin is removing any labor or equipment from the banking system. So far all I’ve seen is traditional banking layering crypto on top.
it's cheaper to transfer Bitcoin and immediately convert to fiat than to do a wire transfer from overseas. Then you're using the home banking system like ACH in the US and SEPA in Europe Wires cost me $50+ because of intermediary banks, even if I don't pay anything at my own bank, someone is getting a big cut.
Don’t companies like TransferWise already do international payments electronically without the need for a blockchain? I definitely support lowering the amount of human labor required for payments, but I don’t see the need for many coal plants worth of computers randomly hashing a bunch of junk over and over again when a normal efficient server can do it.
Every bitcoin exchange I’ve used required me to physically write something on paper and show it to a human, so it seems like the human labor in the banking system is a regulatory issue, not a technical one.
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#79Unrelated to the content itself, I like the inclusion and format of the Recommended Reading section, especially "If you find an article missing from this list please report it here, and it will be added as soon as possible."
Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
#80This seems completely outrageous to me. I had seen similar numbers thrown around casually in the past but still found it hard to believe to be true, (despite being pretty bearish on Bitcoin myself). This seems to provide some pretty detailed evidence, analysis and validation directly addressing criticisms. It seems pretty thorough. Is there any more to discuss on the topic of Bitcoin being outrageously wasteful? Or i…
I'm afraid that the moment you chose to use the word "wasteful" it became a philosophical discussion and they don't typically have final words at all. The stripped down reason you see it as wasteful is that you have some set of beliefs about what is "right" and "meaningful" (many of which, I'll take liberty to say, most likely likely NOT consciously thought out) and since the core technical principle behind Bitcoin i…
Or you could say Bitcoin is wasteful because PoS accomplishes the same thing with 99.99% less energy.