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The Crypto-Chernobyl

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#101

Post by donclark »

atweiden wrote: post #30

> And what is there to show for all this waste? The safest safe haven asset: a global currency of fixed supply controlled by computer algorithms. Essentially the author posits Earth’s ecosystems don't have room for another Argentina. But they arguably don't even have room for half of the current human population. Particularly a human population that exploits nature to the tune of millions of acres of clearcut forests…

Anyone have any data on how much waste is associated with Nasdaq, NYSE, credit card transactions, call centers to support credit cards, websites to support credit cards, ads that support credit cards, tv and radio commercials that support credit cards, etc. (for comparison)?

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#103

Post by quickthrower2 »

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!

The price of electricity, it's CO2 emissions per KWh and the future price of bitcoin is not in the source code.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#104

Post by robjan »

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.

Why would the general public buy ASICs when they can get no utility out of them?

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#105

Post by quickthrower2 »

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…

Basic economic theory doesn't include lobbying, political-industrial complex, subsidies and vested interests.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#107

Post by JoshTko »

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…

Half of Iceland's electricity is already from bitcoin mining so at the very least 1/12 of total bitcoin mining is from geothermal. The first youtube hit for bitcoin mine gives another operation in the US using hydro electricity. Any operations using costly electricity will quickly be put out of business of more efficient operations as mining hardware prices matches demand.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#108

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #69
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #41

I find this completely tone deaf, factually unconvincing, ignorant of the true required comparisons to the sum total power consumption of the whole transactional, fossil fuel and military industrial complex systems and infrastructure required to support the existence and usage of first world fiat currency. “Bitcoin uses a lot of energy” utterly doesn’t mean anything on its own like this. It’s infuriating to see such…

It's by Stephen Diehl, and as much as this community thinks it's above arguments from authority/ad hominem attacks, it will still favor reputable sources as a means of filtering. So ignoring an argument from him will hardly be sufficient.

It being by Stephen only lowers the credibility. This is the same guy who wrote up a big slide deck insulting all the cretin, moron programmers in his eyes who aren’t using functional programming, by saying we are in the “bloodletting and leeches” stage of software at this point of history. (And then he took down the slide deck after getting backlash.)

Stephen is bombastic in all the worst ways, while insulting and looking down on other engineers. I’m willing to look past Stephen being the author and give the general story of Bitcoin power consumption a fair shake despite it (and a clear-minded assessment suggests it’s a total non-story), but Stephen being the author absolutely does not help with credibility.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#109

Post by senectus1 »

louwrentius wrote: post #17
krasin wrote: post #13

I agree that wasting so much energy is not good. But it would be amusing, if we end up getting fusion energy sooner because someone makes a business case to mine bitcoins with the produced energy.

Yes let's create a Dyson Sphere to mine Bitcoin. Seems like a noble goal. Hm...

Its 2035 and Elon Musk owns most of the Sol system First he built Starlink, the precursor to the Musk Mining Dyson sphere. Then he bought 1.5B in BTC and sat on it investing the accrued gains in space mining technology, where he rapidly drained the Sol system of free range mineral resources to funnel them into his Dyson Sphere mining operations. Churning out Dogecoin/Bitcoin and other crypto currencies..

now the only fiat currency with any value on earth.

on the up side, the earth has cooled a bit and we all drive electric cars and fly to the moon for holidays.

Re: The Crypto-Chernobyl

#110

Post by sollewitt »

JoshTko wrote: post #107
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Half of Iceland's electricity is already from bitcoin mining so at the very least 1/12 of total bitcoin mining is from geothermal. The first youtube hit for bitcoin mine gives another operation in the US using hydro electricity. Any operations using costly electricity will quickly be put out of business of more efficient operations as mining hardware prices matches demand.

But we could be using that _to be becoming carbon neutral_
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