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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#461

Post by zadler »

charcircuit wrote: post #294
ucha wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A bitcoin transaction never settles. If a longer chain is created without that transaction it will become the current state and that transaction will be effectively rolled back.

A bank transaction never settles. Though unlikely, it is possible that quantum events may sporadically reverse the transaction.

Both are probabilistic and highly unlikely.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#462

Post by nickpp »

School-Cotton wrote: post #383
nickpp wrote: post #332

How much energy does watching porn consume? Playing video games? Watching a movie? Browsing Facebook? Using a ski chair? Visiting an amusement park? Going in vacation? Cooking your favorite type of food? Making ice cream? Driving to your friends? Listening to music? Concerts? Having a party? Banking? Casinos? As a species we use energy to meet our goals. Those goals may be situated anywhere in our hierarchy of needs.…

> Bitcoin is now considered by some important for our future finance system Yeah, but those people are wrong. It's perfectly reasonable to judge them for doing harmful actions in service of a wrong belief.

Beliefs that used to be "wrong" and now are considered right: abolitionism, homosexuality, marijuana.

How do you know this is a wrong belief that will stay wrong?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#463

Post by michaelscott »

bhupy wrote: post #418
dixego wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If maintaining the infrastructure for something a miniscule percentage of the world's population benefit from requires more energy than entire countries, surely it's worth interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs?

> a minuscule percentage This is true right now considering how nascent this is, but what happens if adoption picks up? One thing I’d like to see discussed is what the marginal power cost of Bitcoin is. From where I sit, the vast majority of power consumption is fixed per block, and occurs regardless of whether you have 1 or 10,000 transactions.

The power consumption is linked to network size and has nothing to do with the block itself. If anything the marginal power cost is linked to the price of a Bitcoin, as the higher it climbs the more incentive to mine, the greater the competition and therefore the greater the mining difficulty/energy required. The only way to really lower energy consumption is to lower the price I can get for a Bitcoin but with the current economic conditions I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#464

Post by Taek »

bhupy wrote: post #418
dixego wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If maintaining the infrastructure for something a miniscule percentage of the world's population benefit from requires more energy than entire countries, surely it's worth interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs?

> a minuscule percentage This is true right now considering how nascent this is, but what happens if adoption picks up? One thing I’d like to see discussed is what the marginal power cost of Bitcoin is. From where I sit, the vast majority of power consumption is fixed per block, and occurs regardless of whether you have 1 or 10,000 transactions.

Bitcoin is valuable even if adoption never does pick up. It's a money system with certain properties that can't be found anywhere else, and it's a money system that's that's half decent.

The existence of Bitcoin forces all other money systems around the world to be at least as good as Bitcoin, or citizens will flee into Bitcoin.

Bitcoin adds value simply by existing, even absent serious adoption.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#465

Post by bccdee »

whoisninja wrote: post #447
dixego wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If maintaining the infrastructure for something a miniscule percentage of the world's population benefit from requires more energy than entire countries, surely it's worth interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs?

let the market decide then, step away- don't mine, don't use Bitcoin if you prefer gold mining uses tons of energy we knew automobiles will pollute the environment, why didn't we stop using them altogether?

We should spend money creating public transit infrastructure to reduce the useof cars in urban areas. Not only is it more efficient in terms of transportation, it wastes much less energy and emits much less CO2. The fact that we haven't is a policy failure.

Incidentally, why would we ever let the market decide when the market consistently throws externalities under the bus?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#466

Post by hakesdev »

dubcanada wrote: post #398
nickpp wrote: post #332

How much energy does watching porn consume? Playing video games? Watching a movie? Browsing Facebook? Using a ski chair? Visiting an amusement park? Going in vacation? Cooking your favorite type of food? Making ice cream? Driving to your friends? Listening to music? Concerts? Having a party? Banking? Casinos? As a species we use energy to meet our goals. Those goals may be situated anywhere in our hierarchy of needs.…

I do agree that most of these articles are picking on bitcoin. I think the main problem people have is the actual result of the mining is useless, say compared to using all those computers for MI or Folding @ Home. I think a better solution would be to get rid of these random bytes and replace them with a Folding @ Home or similar solution, where the computing power you donate results in you getting X bitcoin. Things…

this is a really dumb argument that is trotted out every 4 years. There's also already a FoldingCoin that's been around since 2014. https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/foldingcoin/

For PoW to work it must be a costly signal. If you introduce positive externalities of mining (such as Folding @ Home) the system isn't sustainable.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#467

Post by csharptwdec19 »

whoisninja wrote: post #447
dixego wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If maintaining the infrastructure for something a miniscule percentage of the world's population benefit from requires more energy than entire countries, surely it's worth interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs?

let the market decide then, step away- don't mine, don't use Bitcoin if you prefer gold mining uses tons of energy we knew automobiles will pollute the environment, why didn't we stop using them altogether?

We are lazy.

The original Model T could run on ethanol (not perfect, but better than gasoline in many regards for pollution, and back then IDK if they would have noticed) and Henry Ford was fond of the idea of biofuels; at the time I think he was fond of Potatoes for the purpose.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#468

Post by throwaway5752 »

px43 wrote: post #393
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…

Hey there. I'm one of those people who read Schneier's Applied Cryptography in highschool in the 90s, and immediately recognized the groundbreaking potential of using asymmetric cryptography for currency. I work in information security, and have seen first hand how our existing financial infrastructure is held together with string and scotch tape. For 10 years or so, every time I heard about some big credit card thef…

Maybe you can help me out, then? How does the network increase the transaction rate to current global rates (at least 10^4 higher)? What happens when the mining phase completes, or if there is a drop in value? What is a sustainable transaction fee for miners to take absent mining incentives? What happens over long periods of time from hardware failures where wallets are lost? It's probably my problem not researching well enough, but if you know or can point me to anything I would be grateful.
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