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Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#241

Post by konschubert »

lacker wrote: post #166
lukev wrote: post #132

The energy consumption of Bitcoin isn't new news. What continues to disappoint me, however, is how many people immediately jump to its defense with arguments based on the value it provides, as if that offset its cost. What gets neglected is that the Bitcoin algorithm is inherently wasteful . By its very design, it results in an insane amount of duplicated, pointless computation. The question isn't whether something l…

I think we aren’t quite there yet with Ethereum and Stellar. Proof of stake is promising, but it hasn’t rolled out yet. It’s possible that the migration leads to unforeseen problems, or fails entirely. The trusted models like Stellar aren’t operating at the same financial scale as Bitcoin. The question there isn’t technically whether they can handle the transactions per second, but socially whether they are as resist…

> In the end, more people want Bitcoin than want Ethereum or Stellar.

This is an accident of history more than anything.

I think the distribution will look different once the monetary cost of Proof of Work starts to impact the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#243

Post by londons_explore »

btcd wrote: post #223
puranjay wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know what problem Bitcoin is solving anymore. I haven't seen a single website accepting Bitcoin as a payment in the last whole year.

Bitcoin's main function is store of value, with the additional benefit of being relatively easy to transfer. It is basically a more convenient form a gold. After all these years of growth, Bitcoin's market cap becomes its own unique edge. One simply cannot transfer significant amount, say tens of millions of dollars, easily in any other crypto currency. The cost of energy is minuscule compared to alternative means of…

Buy $10M worth of bitcoin, and then sell it again the next day, and we'll see how much you lost (on average).

I'd guess you'll lose far more than doing the same with gold, because the market slippage due to lack of liquidity far exceeds the cost of those vaults, banks, and guards.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#244

Post by celticninja »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #214
newguy1234 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is pure free market. People keep it because of its history - same as how people buy gold coins.

Except I'd put far more stock into gold coins (or gold in general) as a store of value. But that's just me.

And there are enough people that take the converse position, that allows bitcoin to grow

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#245

Post by paulmd »

puranjay wrote: post #160
lukev wrote: post #132

The energy consumption of Bitcoin isn't new news. What continues to disappoint me, however, is how many people immediately jump to its defense with arguments based on the value it provides, as if that offset its cost. What gets neglected is that the Bitcoin algorithm is inherently wasteful . By its very design, it results in an insane amount of duplicated, pointless computation. The question isn't whether something l…

I don't even know what problem Bitcoin is solving anymore. I haven't seen a single website accepting Bitcoin as a payment in the last whole year.

the problem is largely allowing chinese nationals to extract hard currency past PRC capital controls (any electricity you burn is converted to BTC, and it's easy to bribe a local official to ignore it) and a side of russian mafia transactions (cryptolocker/etc)

there really aren't any significant (legal) north american/european transactions that occur in BTC

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#246

Post by londons_explore »

atq2119 wrote: post #220
zygimantasdev wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue all currencies are unreliable ,because they go down in value due increase of supply. Throwing 2-4% every year sounds awful

This gets repeated over and over again, but the causality of this has never been proven, as incredible as that may sound. Yes, the causality of "create too much money -> inflation" is plausible (but note the emphasis on "too much"). However, we live in a world of endogenous money, where money is largely created by commercial banks in the form of loans to private entities. When prices increase, those loans get bigger.…

Bitcoins rate of coin creation is also ~7% per year at the moment...

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#247

Post by celticninja »

mehrdadn wrote: post #164
donatj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With energy becoming more and more renewable, does it really matter if BTC uses a lot of it?

Renewable energy isn't zero carbon. At the very least you gotta produce the energy generating system somehow. Then maintain it.

But renewable is all wasted if there is no demand. Hydro power used for bitcoin mining doesn't find a new user immediately if bitcoin stops and the power can't be stored long term so it can be wasted.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#248

Post by btcd »

xg15 wrote: post #239
zallarak wrote: post #181

Clarifications (this website perpetuates some common misconceptions): - A single bitcoin "transaction" can actually have thousands of inputs and thousands of outputs. So energy "per transaction" or "transactions per second" is not analogous to a typical monetary transaction. - Bitcoin does not compete with literal credit card transactions (although some use it like that today). I'd compare Bitcoin on-chain transactio…

> Bitcoin does not compete with literal credit card transactions (although some use it like that today). ... So compared to shipping and securing gold, Bitcoin is quite cheap! I haven't heard the tagline "Bitcoin - it's cheaper than moving around gold on warships" yet. So far, Bitcoin has always been advertised as a new form of internet payment and a new decentralised currently for everyday use. It's also the very po…

I think it's fair to blame the marketing mistake. Bitcoin was built for the purpose of making convenient payments. However, it turned out to be an ingenious alternative to gold.

I wish it were labelled cryptoasset instead of cryptocurrency.

In the long-term, the objective nature of Bitcoin should prevail and we'll assess its benefit by whether it is a successful store of value.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#249

Post by btcd »

londons_explore wrote: post #243
btcd wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's main function is store of value, with the additional benefit of being relatively easy to transfer. It is basically a more convenient form a gold. After all these years of growth, Bitcoin's market cap becomes its own unique edge. One simply cannot transfer significant amount, say tens of millions of dollars, easily in any other crypto currency. The cost of energy is minuscule compared to alternative means of…

Buy $10M worth of bitcoin, and then sell it again the next day, and we'll see how much you lost (on average). I'd guess you'll lose far more than doing the same with gold, because the market slippage due to lack of liquidity far exceeds the cost of those vaults, banks, and guards.

This is not true. I used to be a professional market maker in Bitcoin. This year, Bitcoin market is relatively calm in at least half of the time, meaning 12 hours out of a 24-hour day, longer than most established equity market. Under these normal conditions, trading $1m worth of Bitcoin moves the market by less than 0.01%.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#250

Post by konschubert »

nrp wrote: post #201
zallarak wrote: post #181

Clarifications (this website perpetuates some common misconceptions): - A single bitcoin "transaction" can actually have thousands of inputs and thousands of outputs. So energy "per transaction" or "transactions per second" is not analogous to a typical monetary transaction. - Bitcoin does not compete with literal credit card transactions (although some use it like that today). I'd compare Bitcoin on-chain transactio…

The linked website attempts to quantify the impact with some stated assumptions. You’ve stated some alternative assumptions, but haven’t quantified the conclusions to determine if they hold. I’ve been long on Bitcoin, but I am exiting my position over concerns about the environment impact. I don’t think it’s plausible that a proof-of-work based blockchain can be anywhere near as efficient as centralized ledgers are.…

Have a look at stellar.
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