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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#231

Post by emteycz »

avaldeso wrote: post #203
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.

Bitcoin is useful too. It's impossible to quickly and reliably transfer money between many places (e.g. Africa and Europe, USA and Africa, USA and EU) by any other way than Bitcoin.

African banks will steal your money if they have a chance to claim it was lost in transport. Transfers between EU and USA take so much paper and gasoline (to travel to banks) that Bitcoin must be more ecological.

And transfers between many country pairs are totally impossible without Bitcoin.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#232

Post by chrisco255 »

alexmingoia wrote: post #183
chrisco255 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of stake is relatively simple. You agree to stake a minimum amount of tokens (decided on by the network) and you get to run a node and validate transactions. If you attest to a malicious block and other validators call you out on it, you get slashed (i.e. you lose some portion of your stake, if not all of it): https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms... One of the problems with it is that it…

How is the correct chain decided?

https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms...

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#233

Post by shlant »

doomroot wrote: post #88
daptaq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can send Bitcoin for free, instantly, trustlessly.

you can be a proponent of bitcoin without stating such blatant lies...

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#234

Post by jiriknesl »

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?

No. I don't use BTC as a speculative asset. I use it for two things:

1. when it is expensive or difficult to send money to places like Vietnam, post-soviet countries, Iran. 2. some saving in case the shit hits the fan and I will have to survive for a couple of months without TransferWise, Revolut.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#235

Post by FabHK »

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?

Indeed. The "Coinbase" mining reward (currently 6.25 BTC per block mined) halves every 4 years. The theory is that the proportion of fees (currently only 10%-20% of the total reward miners make) will increase and make up for the reduction in coinbase.

Currently, a successful block makes 6.25 BTC * 45000 BTCUSD = 280k USD in Coinbase, or around 100 USD per transaction, plus a 10-20 USD fee per transaction.

As Coinbase drops (or BTCUSD drops), users will have to pay around 100+ USD per transaction in fees, or the rewards to miners will drop and some will go offline, resulting in a reduction in difficulty and less energy wasted.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#236

Post by SiempreViernes »

ucha wrote: post #156

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…

Uh, there wasn't really anyone talking about environment issues in the 1940's, which is when the system was created, and global warming wasn't established as a firm concern until the 1980's by which time Bretton Woods was dead.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#237

Post by snickms »

If the goal is to educate the public on the scale of power involved, a comparison with a commonly used service would help a lot IMHO. Something like 'Bitcoin consumes 14 times the energy of Google and half (according rough estimates) that of Youtube' would make things easier to grasp before hitting the reader with country comparisons.

FWIW here is my list of 'if a service were a country':

Google Guatemala

Bitcoin Argentina

Youtube South Africa (unreliable data)

[Edit] whoops - no references

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+total+power+cons...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#238

Post by jiriknesl »

nly wrote: post #168
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.

What countries?

Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Vietnam, Iran

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#239

Post by celticninja »

chrisco255 wrote: post #154
doomroot wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The only way to out compete bitcoin now is on features. Which if successful in an altcoin can easily be integrated into bitcoin.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#240

Post by purple_ferret »

Nursie wrote: post #70
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #40

I'm tired of this BS about Bitcoin and pollution. So tired that yesterday I wrote this [0]. Of course you might be in complete disagreement with me, but please read it and let me know what you think. Be kind. I am trying to have a good conversation about it, not to impose my view. [0]: https://simon.medium.com/bitcoin-and-pollution-the-definitiv...

It's not BS. The world in general is trying to find ways to be more energy efficient and up pops bitcoin, now using more power than a country of 44 million people. It's ridiculous. As is your reference on that article - "Most bitcoin mining is using energy at the source that was uneconomical to use for other purposes, because of the loss experienced in transporting the energy to economic centers", which just links to…

>which just links to one of your own comments on HN!

I found this bit hilarious. I guess he's banking on people not actually clicking the source links? Medium journalism at its finest.

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