Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index • Hacker News Board

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#201

Post by gruez » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #160

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 bas…

>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.

Isn't this a non-issue because mining is global? Peak time in europe doesn't mean it's peak time in north america or east asia.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#202

Post by nedsma » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

People/companies who invested significantly in BTC will go to extreme measures to defend their investments. Anything negative said about BTC will be faced with various whataboutisms, how it uses renewables, it's a value store and other marketing talk. It's also pathetic that Tesla and Musk are pledging $100M for a CO2 capture solution, whereas in reality Bitcoin is adding 35MT (mega tons) of CO2 per year.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#203

Post by avaldeso » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #104

The mining of Bitcoin uses this amount of electricity. How much resources does the mining of gold use? Afaik, 3000 tons of gold are mined per year. Which is worth about $150B. I would expect the mining uses resources of about $150B as well? By my calculation, the value of bitcoins mined per year is $15B: 900 Bitoins per day = 328500 Bitcoins per Year 328500 * $45000 = $15B So I would expect that Gold mining uses abou…

What's your point? Gold is useful. One of the most versatile metals. You can find gold almost en every electronics, or medical implants, or scientific equipment, or in space telescopes. BTC isn't even useful data. It's just a number. What an utterly disingenuous comparison.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#204

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

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, but it's also not transferred as much because of cost, time, and transactions/second limit; I have no solid figures, but I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of actual bitcoin transactions are virtual, in databases on the exchanges. You can't do high frequency trading on the blockchain.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#205

Post by afavour » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

jiriknesl wrote: post #120

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?

I use it as a currency for years. Especially for large transactions internationally, where my bank asks me+the other party to fees like $30 and it takes 3 days if everything goes well. In comparison with that, BTC for those years, gave me on average 40 minutes and $1 fee. This is thirty times better than what my bank provides.

I use TransferWise in those situations. It works great.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#206

Post by emteycz » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #109

charcircuit wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about $7 at the moment to be included in the next block. A new block is added approximately every 10 minutes. Since bitcoin does not guarantee finality some services require you to wait for a certain amount of extra blocks after yours to reduce the chance of a change reorginaztion happening that doesn't include your transaction. Bitcoin will not function as a currency due to it's high volatility. For a more usab…

USDT claims to be collateralized with real life assets. But their story keeps changing, they refuse to allow an audit, and they're under serious investigation by the NY Attorney General. It can reasonably be thought of as a fraud that hasn't popped yet: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/

I keep hearing this for years and so far it didn't pop. I can't trust this anymore.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#207

Post by lallysingh » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #82

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Exactly. Here's VC and prominent cryptocurrency enthusiast Fred Wilson saying exactly that: https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ While I agree with him that Bitcoin is a terrible currency, I think the "store of value" thing is nonsense as well. Stores of value need to have relatively stable value. Bitcoin is hugely volatile. That's great for speculation, but nobody with any sense would use it as…

What competes with these stores of value? As a high-risk-high-return investment, it makes a lot of sense. I'd count it in the same category as artwork as an investment.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#208

Post by picks_at_nits » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #165

jiriknesl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it as a currency for years. Especially for large transactions internationally, where my bank asks me+the other party to fees like $30 and it takes 3 days if everything goes well. In comparison with that, BTC for those years, gave me on average 40 minutes and $1 fee. This is thirty times better than what my bank provides.

Do you feel bad that you used bitcoin to save $30 instead of speculating on it to make $30K?

This may not be the most constructive way to make the point, but this is a feature of any speculative asset. If the market as a whole has a very high confidence it will continue to rise in value, few people will want to trade it for goods and services unless they have no choice or can make even more money from the goods and services than they can from holding the asset.

Otherwise, it’s like getting options in a startup and spending them on pizza.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#209

Post by koonsolo » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

aspic wrote: post #72

IgorPartola wrote: post #10

Slightly off topic, but does anyone have any good resources on how alternative consensus protocols work, like proof of stake and proof of importance? I either see really simplistic explanations or ones that assume a lot of domain knowledge. I also recently saw a crypto coin that claims to be energy efficient, and I don’t quite understand how that’s possible without the possibility of a 50.1% attack.

You're perhaps thinking of https://nano.org ? A brief description of it's Open Representative Voting (ORV) consensus mechanism: "A consensus mechanism unique to Nano which involves accounts delegating their balance as voting weight to Representatives. The Representatives vote themselves on the validity of transactions published to the network using the voting weight delegated to them. These votes are shared with thei…

I'm a huge Nano fanboy since the RaiBlocks days. It definitely deserves more attention, since it's a pretty solid technology and was distributed pretty fairly.

But even in this crypto bull market, everybody seems to ignore it, except for the fanboys on Reddit.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#210

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

mj4m1n wrote: post #125

daptaq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how will Bitcoin become a usable currency It won't, it's just a speculative asset.

Money is a speculative asset.

True, but there's a bajillion checks and balances to stabilize the value of it, no such thing for bitcoin. I mean mtgox bought virtual btc to drive up the price. Tether is a money printer created to push real money into btc. And it's quite telling that nobody's talked about BTC on its own since 2012, it's always been in relation to the USD.