Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 8:41 PM UTC

Taek wrote: post #556

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…

Nothing about Proof of Stake is relatively simple lol. Not the incentives, not the threat model, not the trust model, not the impact on the economics, not the implementation, not the scalable byzantine fault tolerate research. There are plenty of people who understand it well, I'm not saying it's outside of reach of a normal human being. But understanding proof of stake is not a 30 minute journey. (nor is understandi…

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

Post by perfunctory » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #760

sharpneli wrote: post #440

At that rate and assuming 4tx per second a single Bitcoin transaction consumes 165kWh. A Tesla battery is bit over 50kWh. So let's round that to 3 full charges of Tesla battery. That's 350km/220 miles of range per charge. In total 1050km or 660 miles of driving. So basically if you want to transfer money and the recipient is closer than 660 miles from you it's more efficient to just get a bunch of bills, drive there…

That comparison is flawed. Visa is not money. The purpose of mining is to protect the value of the currency. Protecting the value of the US dollar requires a huge economy with politics and military power.

Post by imtringued » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

flopunctro wrote: post #697

kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

In the grand scheme, the "tons" (or rather, gigajoules) of energy wasted by the Proof-of-Work are nothing. The Sun radiation that hits Earth every second dwarfs this consumption. Also, one of the definitions of life is "a local decrease in entropy, at the cost of a global, larger, increase in entropy". By this criteria, every living being is a bad thing for the universe, because it accelerates the global heat death e…

Post by kerng » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

rspeele wrote: post #820

kerng wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the comment shows how valuable Bitcoin actually really is - it's pretty impressive.

Interesting take. Does the amount of money spent on Herbalife show how valuable it actually really is? What about essential oils or healing crystals? In a tautological way, sure, everything's worth what somebody's willing to pay for it. But the above examples must call into question whether there is a distinction between what something is worth in dollars, and what its merit is.