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The Crypto-Chernobyl

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#51

Post by tylersmith »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #25
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #22

> incentives an ever increasing amount of waste that can only increase with time. That is NOT true: The Bitcoin block reward is cut in half every four years - an exponential decay! In the long-term it will be zero , miners will only earn transaction fees. This means that there will be a supply vs demand market, where supply is the willingness of people to pay transaction fees, and demand is miners who consume them. A…

Why are you downvoting this? It's right in the source code, this is not just a personal opinion!

Because the energy expenditure is not supposed to halve when the rewards do. The premise of Nakamoto consensus is that the decisions are finalized if and only if the chain constantly has enough hash rate to outpace anybody that might want to rewrite it. If the hash rate were to every halve, the chain would be jeopardy.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#52

Post by yongjik »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #45
MarcScott wrote: post #4

Still one of the best descriptions of bitcoin I have seen. > imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1030225104234373121

Imagine if you could just print money to pay your bills and hide the fact that you're bankrupt. - That's what governments do with fiat money.

...There surely is a large overlap between bitcoin enthusiasts and people who don't understand how fiat currency works, isn't it?

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#53

Post by tylersmith »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #37
robjan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big problem then. That means once the block mining reward turns to zero most miners will have to cease their operation to keep themselves in the black. If that happens, the cost of a 50% attack significantly decreases.

They will sell off their equipment to the general public, which causes a lot of decentralization, and thus makes a coordinated attack more difficult.

Decentralized ownership of ASICs doesn't help if they're not being used. If they are being used then there's no decrease in energy usage.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#54

Post by tylersmith »

devname wrote: post #3

The energy usage is for mining new bitcoin and collecting fees, not "7 transactions per second". Newly mined bitcoin will be used for infinite future transactions. If you want more settlement with same store-of-value properties, use Bitcoin Cash.

The energy usage is for keeping transactions that have happened from being reorged out of the chain.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#55

Post by emteycz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #50
JoshTko wrote: post #32

My understanding is that the vast majority of crypto mining happens at dedicated farms in energy cost optimal locations such as Iceland where you can have clean geothermal energy. I haven't seen an analysis that looks at actual mining facilities carbon costs vs. a general average figure of CO/2 emissions per energy unit which absolutely would not apply in this case.

That's the narrative being pushed to distract from the massive scale of Bitcoin's energy usage, but it's largely a myth. Yes, some Bitcoin mines use cheap renewable energy. However, renewable energy isn't free. If it wasn't going to mining, it would be transferred through the power grid to other locations that rely on non-renewable energy sources. > the vast majority of crypto mining happens at dedicated farms in ene…

Have you forgotten about the existence of China (and its enormous hydro-dams)? Nobody suggested Iceland is the sole location of Bitcoin mining.

> it would be transferred through the power grid to other locations that rely on non-renewable energy sources.

Not at all. Electricity is not easy to transport nor store.

Do you know there are many days with negative prices of electricity in many locations in EU, because the electricity can't be economically transported even across the rather small region?

> Bitcoin uses 6.5X more energy than the entire country of Iceland combined.

Given the benefit of Bitcoin, that's excellent!

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#56

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

paul_f wrote: post #6
justforyou wrote: post #5

It's disengenuous to make that argument without a comparison to the full manifold energy consumption required to support fiat cash... (including things like burning gasoline and jet fuel to move paper and metal for shredding/melting.)

I don't think we need a detailed study for most everyone to accept that fiat cash is several orders of magnitude less energy costly than bitcoin

You’re not factoring in the military industrial complex cost of military enforcement of fiat currencies. You have to be factoring in the cost of militaries, fossil fuel exploits, and more.

The cost of operating US dollars as a transactional concept is many, many, many orders of magnitude greater energy cost than Bitcoin.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#57

Post by jmhyer123 »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #37
robjan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big problem then. That means once the block mining reward turns to zero most miners will have to cease their operation to keep themselves in the black. If that happens, the cost of a 50% attack significantly decreases.

They will sell off their equipment to the general public, which causes a lot of decentralization, and thus makes a coordinated attack more difficult.

That assumes the general public will buy it and use it which isn't likely if the incentive to do so isn't there.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#59

Post by nexthash »

Nextgrid wrote: post #49
nexthash wrote: post #23

Yes, yes, yes. In another discussion, I brought up that according to current energy consumption rates for average mining equipment, it took 2.4 million terrawatts to mine the $1.5 billion in Bitcoin Tesla bought recently. Does putting this much money in Bitcoin have a positive economic impact? Does it have any tangible value other than as a stopover for hedge fund and organized crime money? I think not, despite all t…

On the other hand, what drives Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is the need for certain properties that conventional currencies don't have - this includes properties some might find undesirable as they mainly benefit crime. The definition of "crime" itself is murky - are the citizens of sanctioned countries criminals because they're just trying to survive by participating in the global economy despite a stupid feud…

Yep, crime is all relative. Cryptocurrencies fullfill a very important need - how else would I accept my ransomware payments?

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#60

Post by PragmaticPulp »

coralreef wrote: post #47

Bitcoin is only a problem if you believe the future of energy creation is fossil fuels. This is simply not the case. Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of energy for new power plants compared to nuclear, gas peaker (natural gas), and coal. https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth 2019 Prices Coal - $109/MWh Solar - $68/MWh On shore wind - $53/MWh Basic economic theory dictates that energy consuming bus…

Missing the point. No matter how you spin it, Bitcoin's energy usage is additive on top of all other energy usage. If Bitcoin wasn't consuming that energy, renewable or otherwise, it would be re-routed to other endeavors.

If Bitcoin was using renewable energy, that's still renewable energy that could be used to replace older fossil fuel power stations. Instead, we're burning 121 TWh per year to perform arbitrary proof-of-work calculations. That requires us to keep 121 TWh of older generation capacity online.

There's no free lunch, especially when it comes to power generation.

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