Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index • Hacker News Board

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#151

Post by mj4m1n » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #33

Jonnax wrote: post #23

From what I understand bitcoin currently has a $20+ transaction fee with a transaction time takes 60 minutes+ With these issues in addition to the high power consumption, how will Bitcoin become a usable currency?

It won't and even BTC enthusiasts have given up on that. They narrative is now that BTC is a "store of value".

For many BTC enthusiasts the store of value narrative has been in place for a very long time.

“I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions.” - Hal Finney (2010)

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#152

Post by insert_coin » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

There is no problem, energy is "free", but still, the source of the electricity should always be a concern not just for bitcoin but for everything. Nuclear, solar, wind? good. Hydro, natural gas? less good but ok for now. Carbon, oil? we need to replace those plants asap.

Bitcoin or anything really should be allowed to use however much energy it is economically feasible. The real question is, why is there no better use for that electricity than to compute numbers? How our economies became so stagnant the best return for capital investment is bitcoin?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#153

Post by nannal » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

progforlyfe wrote: post #126

If I understand the system correctly, the vast majority of bitcoin energy consumption comes from the mining process, which is not strictly required (at least not anymore, with 18+ million BTC now mined and in circulation). I can spin up the bitcoin software on my home PC to participate in the network, sending and receiving bitcoin, and confirming some transactions, and the power consumed would be low. Much less than…

> Just regulate/limit mining, or even better put a capacity on electricity usage or have tiers where the more you use, the more expensive it is, making mining not worth it after a certain point.

Isn't that the exact method used, electricity is metered, the more you use, the more expensive it is.

Yes it drives up the price for everyone else because there's demand, but by that argument we would need to look at other energy intensive activities, like heating and driving, which feels like a step backwards.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#154

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

doomroot wrote: post #133

jqpabc123 wrote: post #55

Bitcoin is Crypto 1.0. There are better ways to do this. But people remain infatuated with Bitcoin.

If something ever overtakes Bitcoin in the same way that Facebook overtook MySpace it’ll disprove the entire Bitcoin thesis. Currencies have to be stable. I expect a winner take all scenario here and Bitcoin to be that winner.

What "Bitcoin thesis"? Nakamoto had no such assertions in the original whitepaper that other cryptos would never outcompete Bitcoin.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#155

Post by celticninja » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

epalm wrote: post #107

Forgive my ignorance but aren't there a finite number of bitcoins? A casual search says the world has mined 18.5 million out of a total of 21 million, after which, doesn't the mining process stop, along with the current environmental impact?

Mining is what powers transactions as well as generating new coins. Once all 22 million coins are mined it is assumed that transaction fees will replace the coins miners earn . So mining will always remain in some form or another, and also the size of the network is what makes it safe.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#156

Post by ucha » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

As a store of value, bitcoin does not compare to fiat but to other forms of hard money such as gold. During Bretton-woods, the US dollar and other currencies were redeemable for gold and no one was saying that the US dollar was polluting the world because gold mining is polluting.

Comparing the environmental impact of gold and bitcoin is an open question. Gold mining pollutes the world in ways bitcoin never will. It creates ocean waste [1], long-lasting mercury pollution [2] and more.

As renewable become cheaper than fossil fuels, bitcoin will create additional demand for cheap renewable and accelerate the green transition. Because a mine could be moved essentially anywhere, it can be placed exactly where cheap renewable source of energy can be collected, thus maximizing the return on investment for renewable power plants, for example with geothermal in Iceland [3].

[1] https://www.earthworks.org/blog/drawing-the-battle-lines-ove...

[2] https://theconversation.com/gold-rush-mercury-legacy-small-s...

[3] https://www.wired.com/story/iceland-bitcoin-mining-gallery/

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#157

Post by tgv » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

yrral wrote: post #83

This is a rehash of a previous post of mine regarding electricity consumption: Back in the days where all our electricity came from fossil fuels, I completely agree that marginal electricity usage was bad for the environment. However I think that thought has persisted with us even though it is no longer true 100% of the time. With renewables sometimes the marginal cost of electricity to our environment is near 0 or e…

As long as we need coal or gas plants, bitcoin mining is a net negative for the environment. It also doesn't add anything of value and facilitates crime. If you want to push bitcoin to low demand hours via pricing, you're increasing the price for the rest of us. It's a lose-lose-lose situation for people.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#158

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #44

paulpauper wrote: post #6

Criticism a about bitcoin power consumption betrays an understand of even elementary economics. Replace bitcoin with beanie baby, and one could have made a similar argument in the late 90s about beanie babies causing a fabric shortage or fabric being wasted on toys that could instead be used for better purposes. When the beanie baby market crashed, the problem effectively fixed itself, as there was this sudden glut o…

Was there a fabric shortage in the 90s?

Beanie babies created impacts far beyond fabric.

- Consider the small plastic pellets, which will eventually work their way into delicate ecosystems and devastate the ecology for a millenium or more.

- Since beanie babies were considered a store of value, countless tons of plastic storage bins and millions of cubic feet of climate controlled storage space are consumed to store beanie babies.

- Back of the napkin calculations indicate that over a billion dollars has been spent heating and cooling beanie babies since 1996.

- Beanie babies take up alot of space, driving demand for self-storage facilities.

- When sold on the internet, consider the electricity, excess heat, etc generated by Ebay, as well as the carbon footprint of producing and disposing of cardboard, tape, labels, etc and the carbon consumed in shipping them.

- The human toll is real as well. At least a dozen UPS drivers have been seriously injured while delivering beanie babies.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#159

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

progforlyfe wrote: post #126

If I understand the system correctly, the vast majority of bitcoin energy consumption comes from the mining process, which is not strictly required (at least not anymore, with 18+ million BTC now mined and in circulation). I can spin up the bitcoin software on my home PC to participate in the network, sending and receiving bitcoin, and confirming some transactions, and the power consumed would be low. Much less than…

[deleted]

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#160

Post by FabHK » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

yrral wrote: post #83

This is a rehash of a previous post of mine regarding electricity consumption: Back in the days where all our electricity came from fossil fuels, I completely agree that marginal electricity usage was bad for the environment. However I think that thought has persisted with us even though it is no longer true 100% of the time. With renewables sometimes the marginal cost of electricity to our environment is near 0 or e…

> bitcoin mining be kind of a load balancer

Given that the difficulty adjusts only every 2 weeks, that means that the time to find a block will vary enormously during the day as the demand/supply imbalance varies. That'll make BTC even more annoying than it is already (it's currently peak electricity demand where most of the miners are sitting, so I'll have to wait 3 hours for my 6 confirms?).

At any rate, you're basically saying that with renewable energy it's ok to waste energy, and I think we are not quite there yet.