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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#261

Post by dan-robertson »

ucha wrote: post #92
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?

Buying US stocks takes 2 days to settle. Sending simple wires in the US takes hours. Last time I tried to send significant funds from France to the UK, it took me a whole week of back and forth with the bank to complete all the AML/KYC paperwork. Let's not even talk about how long it would take to move gold from one part of the world to another cf. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/iran-is-h... You c…

I feel like Iran and Venezuela are bad examples as they are typically denied access to much of the global financial system. It’s normally pretty easy to move gold around and this process is handled by banks. Of course you might not get the same gold bars if you move gold between countries (for one thing they tend to come in different sizes in different places) and it likely won’t even be physically the same gold, but the banks tend to handle the arbitrage of taking physical gold to refineries across to move it from one market to another (though there were some worries this might break down between the US futures markets and London physical markets due to coronavirus restrictions)

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#262

Post by nightcereal »

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…

Satoshi would be really proud of nano.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#263

Post by rjsw »

ucha wrote: post #92
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?

Buying US stocks takes 2 days to settle. Sending simple wires in the US takes hours. Last time I tried to send significant funds from France to the UK, it took me a whole week of back and forth with the bank to complete all the AML/KYC paperwork. Let's not even talk about how long it would take to move gold from one part of the world to another cf. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/iran-is-h... You c…

> Last time I tried to send significant funds from France to the UK, it took me a whole week of back and forth with the bank to complete all the AML/KYC paperwork.

You would need to do the same paperwork with bitcoin.

I have UK and French bank accounts, transfers between them take seconds. Transfers from the French account to any other Eurozone account take seconds.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#264

Post by jmiskovic »

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…

I would agree with your first point, but increasing power consumption to accelerate green transition makes no sense to me.

Green energy is a better solution to energy shortage, it's not something you'd want if there was no need for extra energy. The green energy industry captures financial investments, generates waste and contributes to global warming.

To go ad absurdum, wouldn't increasing CO2 emissions also accelerate the green transition?

Of course if Bitcoin can provide a substantial benefit world-wide then it's energy footprint can be deemed acceptable. I don't have enough experience with it to make such claim but I'm worried about increased fees and transaction times.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#265

Post by baxtr »

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways.

The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so.

Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking rich? I simply can't answer what BTCs and other crypto coins are actually good for. Can someone help me out here?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#266

Post by analog31 »

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.

Money is a technology, that's all. A technology can be developed and maintained to serve a specific purpose. It happens that major government money systems have been managed to serve purposes such as: Temporary store of value, convenient medium of exchange, and instrument of economic policy.

Like any technology, it works or it doesn't, and people will use the one that works the best for them if they have a choice. For instance people in some countries use their local currency for daily purchases, but store their wealth in instruments that are valued in dollars, euro's, etc. Some people will break the laws of their own countries to lay their hands on those dollars or euro's.

Money is speculative inasmuch as its value is still relative to other things such as stocks, gold, and bitcoins. Holding dollars instead of gold on any given day is a speculation. In a relatively free economy, there's no such thing as opting out of speculation.

Bitcoins are unique inasmuch as they are designed to exist without any deliberate purpose being imposed on them. The only way a government can manipulate the value of bitcoins, that I can think of, is to subsidize the electricity for bitcoin mining.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#268

Post by hobofan »

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…

How do we determine how much/little energy usage is acceptable though? Is it okay for Google to use about as much energy as Tunisia? Maybe Bitcoin provides more economical value than Argentina? How much energy has and is being expended during the mining of all the gold that is just being used as store of value?

(Mostly playing devil's advocate here. I would personally be for strong carbon taxes on electricity.)

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#269

Post by shp0ngle »

baxtr wrote: post #265

Ok, I have to admit that I am one of those people who knew about BTC very, very early but never bought any. Now, of course I should have mined at least 100 back in the days, but anyways. The reason I have never mined nor bought into it is that I still, to this day struggle to come up with a real reason to do so. Am I getting too old? Do I not see the "huge potential" what it may become? Don't I want to get freaking r…

It’s good for telling other people to buy more and checking price daily.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#270

Post by JumpCrisscross »

px43 wrote: post #254

Please put on your critical thinking hat for a minute. Using electricity is not the same as contributing to carbon emissions. Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy, and thus contributes negligibly to carbon emissions. The idea that all electricity generation is bad and therefore all electricity usage is bad is completely ridiculous. Instead of working so hard to figure out how to hate…

> Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy

I thought it’s mostly mined in China?

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