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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#481

Post by bccdee »

jp555 wrote: post #441
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.…

Even more directly - How much energy does all the world's "legacy" Fintech use? Banks, exchanges, government tax agencies, accountants, money printing, retail cash machines (ATM, registers, etc) and all the way to gold mining.

If you want to analogize 1:1, a bitcoin transaction consumes approximately five hundred thousand times more energy than a visa transaction [1].

[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co...

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#482

Post by Taek »

hummusman wrote: post #448
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.…

When it became blindingly apparent that mining diamonds, gold and rare earth metals was proving harmful to societies (pollution, war etc.) countries put into place regulation to ensure that future mining would be conducted in ways to try and eliminate these harms. Mining bitcoin is a growing contributor to energy consumption, and subsequently environmental damage and harm. Similar precedent?

Kind of but not really. People aren't upset at _how_ bitcoin is using electricity, they are upset at how much bitcoin is using electricity.

If you want to save the environment, regulate the production of electricity irrespective of how that electricity is put to use. Let the market figure out how to allocate the electricity to various tasks.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#483

Post by parliament32 »

bccdee wrote: post #457
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.…

One bitcoin transaction uses FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES more energy than one Visa transaction [1]. This is like lighting a cigar with a $500 bill and going "what, I have to light my cigars somehow, and inevitably it'll cost something. I spend money to meet my goals." [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co...

Compared to the cost of lighting a cigar with a matchstick, it'd be more like lighting it with a penny. Despite Visa transactions being cheap, bitcoin transactions are also very cheap -- you spend more power turning on your living room light for a few seconds. Probably best if we keep things in perspective.

Further: https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consu...

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#484

Post by wickoff »

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…

Can you really not find a single use for bitcoin?

Here is the most obvious one - true sovereignty over your capital. When you have bitcoin, you have have physical ownership of a digitally transferable asset. Not legal ownership where a custodian ultimately decides whether you can access it.

In theory nothing prevents individuals from carrying entire national budgets as seed words in their heads.

You can argue ethics, legality but surely you have to acknowledge the power it gives individuals.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#485

Post by kybernetikos »

onyb wrote: post #442
Shoue wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the alternative is simply just using Proof of Stake and lowering the energy consumption by an estimated 99%, yes, we can be judgmental of how others use energy in this specific case. It's not Bitcoin/PoW or no cryptocurrencies at all, that's a false dichotomy, if that's what you're implying.

PoS lacks fairness. To participate in PoS, you need an existing stash of coins, which is inaccessible for many individuals from countries where cryptocurrencies are outlawed. Not forgetting to mention that participation in consensus would indirectly require going through KYC. PoW, on the other hand, is akin to buying Bitcoin with electricity - a borderless natural resource.

> PoS lacks fairness.

I dislike the way that cryptocurrencies have managed their initial allocations, but it's way better than the way that fiat currencies have managed their initial allocations (usually encoding generations of violence, rascism and oppression).

To 'participate' in PoS (by which you mean mining a block I suppose), you can buy all the stake you need from other people, just like if you want to 'participate' in stock ownership, or land ownership or ownership of nearly anything else in the world.

> PoW, on the other hand, is akin to buying Bitcoin with electricity - a borderless natural resource.

Well.... if you try to mine BTC these days with a standard computer on a standard electricity tarif, you're not going to have a fun time.

Given the fact that to reasonably 'participate' in PoS you need only the kind of computer you already have and an easily acquired stake, while to reasonably 'participate' in many forms of PoW you need unusual, expensive custom hardware and cheap electricity, I'm not at all convinced that PoW has anything better to say about 'fairness'.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#486

Post by trimbo »

nickpp wrote: post #462
School-Cotton wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Maybe a better comparison would be mutually assured destruction. Enormous, world-level resources spent towards trying to ensure an outcome for something that no one wants to have happen. Those enriched along the way were the purveyors, not the population.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#487

Post by bccdee »

kingkawn wrote: post #421
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.…

Why is not wanting to waste electricity on Ponzi schemes so triggering?

They're emotionally invested in cryptocurrency being the future. When people challenge them by suggesting that it's basically bad all the way down, they lash out.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#488

Post by csomar »

dixego wrote: post #372
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.…

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?

True. Let's let one guy, then, decides how our energy should be consumed.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#489

Post by jeromegv »

minitoar wrote: post #354
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.…

The almighty dollar rights all wrongs. If I’m paying for it, what do you care? This is a slightly dressed up Tragedy in The Commons.

What if the externality is not into the price? When the externality of it (pollution, global warming, etc) is not within the price, then yes, we do care, because you aren't paying the true cost and you transfer that cost to me.

If you have a carbon tax? Then sure. But if you dump all your emission on the rest of us and wash your hand because "you paid for it", then yes, we will question the value of a waste of energy because that's really the only thing we can do.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#490

Post by TrackerFF »

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?

But then again, gold actually has legitimate uses that benefits most people (electronics).

Automobiles pollute, sure, but the vast majority of people benefit from vehicles.

But what, if any, benefit does bitcoin offer to the public - other than being a speculative asset?

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