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Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#251

Post by celticninja »

paulmd wrote: post #234
iopq wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

to add: china often pays zero, because they're bribing local officials to ignore their bitcoin farms

Pays zero what? They have to buy the hardware so I assume you mean electricity, pretty sure bribing allows them to operate, it doesn't cover electricity costs.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#252

Post by paulmd »

celticninja wrote: post #251
paulmd wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to add: china often pays zero, because they're bribing local officials to ignore their bitcoin farms

Pays zero what? They have to buy the hardware so I assume you mean electricity, pretty sure bribing allows them to operate, it doesn't cover electricity costs.

pays zero electricity costs, yes. A couple grand a year can buy you all the electricity you want. tens or hundreds or of grand per year, or millions. A couple grand is a lot in terms of China salaries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/12/chinese-police...

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2143758/chine...

https://www.ccn.com/chinese-police-seize-600-bitcoin-mining-...

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2108486/four-...

https://kyc360.com/article/bitcoin-causes-electricity-crisis...

you'll never find a systematic article on it, but these aren't the first or the last incidents.

they also pay much lower hardware costs than the US does, because it all happens off the books. Chinese mining farms with internal hardware/super cheap power are nothing new.

china doesn't and never has played fairly in terms of hardware or power costs. crypto as a whole has been embraced because it's a good system to move value past chinese capital controls, you just are getting your beak wet as that money moves.

just like those 2 million dollar houses in vancouver or whatever. Sure, it's great to be trading in that current, or providing property management services, or to be holding the asset as it's pumped up by that money moving under the chinese capital controls!

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#253

Post by celticninja »

spookthesunset wrote: post #90
krick wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bitcoin is absolutely wasteful to the vast majority of the population on earth. It provides no benefit to them, and makes their energy bill (and video card bill) go up.

But the same could be applied to almost any consumer product. My kids want to buy these crappy plastic toys at the supermarket, wastefully packaged and shipped from China, of no-use to anyone yet energy is expended to design, make and ship them internationally. And this is just one consumer product from China. Have you seen Alibaba offerings of late?

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#254

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #202

Cannot the bitcoin developers put in a massive difficulty jump at this point? Just make mining useless. It won't solve the transaction cost, but I thought sharding was supposed to help that, although I never bothered to learn about lightning network.

> Just make mining useless.

This would make Bitcoin useless.

> Cannot the bitcoin developers put in a massive difficulty jump at this point?

No, because the miners will continue to run the useful version (for some definition of useful). Changing the algorithm would require a hard-fork and a hard-fork to turn down the network will result in the "new" branch of the fork ... turning down, while the old one continues.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#256

Post by celticninja »

spookthesunset wrote: post #116
aeternum wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increased electricity demand may drive research funding resulting in more efficient energy production.

LOL. Sure, but that is only being done because bitcoin gobbled up all the electricity that could have been used doing useful things like running data centers, smelting aluminum, air conditioning homes, etc. Bitcoin is a drain on the electrical system. You are basically arguing that it is okay to litter because it will create jobs and spawn new anti-litter technology. Doesn’t work that way, sorry.

That electricity could not always have been used to smelt aluminium or whatever else you suggest. Some of that power is hydro based and cannot travel a significant distance. You can move bitcoin mining equipment closer to power sources much more easily than you can move an aluminium furnace and supporting infrastructure.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#257

Post by fierarul »

sschueller wrote: post #203
blueprint wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you were downvoted. Excellent comment.

Because many believe that Satoshi's vision was to do quick on chain transactions and be used like cash not like gold.

Perhaps the Satoshi group should have called their invention BitGold instead of BitCoin? Although it's normal to see tech guys bad at marketing/branding.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#258

Post by reportgunner »

me551ah wrote: post #193

The most powerful supercomputer in the world reaches 143 petaflops, bitcoin network in comparison reaches 80704290.84 Petaflops. Granted that a majority of this computing power is in the form of custom ASIC's, but the figure is really staggering. And all of the 80704290.84 Petaflops, consume 73.12 TWh to repeatedly calculate SHA256 ! What could be the world's most powerful network does absolutely nothing but crunch h…

Big number scary. Orange coin bad!

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#259

Post by zadler »

paulmd wrote: post #224
RidingPegasus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the choice would you suggest a person from somewhere such as Venezuela keep their personal savings in Bitcoin or Venezuelan bolívars?

I'd suggest keeping it in USD or other hard currency. Bitcoin provides no advantages in obtaining/transacting hard currency relative to other currencies, nor any stability while holding it. Either way you are going to a black market, and you are paying real, unaffordable conversion rates compared to transacting in (worthless) hyperinflationary currency. The bitcoin guy is not going to accept 1 Zimbabwe dollar to 1 US…

USD bills can’t be easily transferred over the Internet.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#260

Post by reportgunner »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #3

I saw this a couple days ago when @arcticbull mentioned it here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21256112 Jaw dropping. Converted to Telsa Model S miles as per https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S Comes out to about 2000 miles or 3200 kilometers for one Bitcoin transaction. Astounding.

It does not really matter if it's 2 miles or 2 million miles per bitcoin transaction.

You cannot stop bitcoin.

Edit: You would end up burning even more if you tried to stop it.

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