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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

cbeci.org

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#971

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nic Carter's point is intentionally obtuse and belies his conflicted interests. The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy) [edit or rather worded differently if each Visa transaction consumed as much power as a Bitcoin transaction], it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces…

> The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy), it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces, and produce as much e-waste as the entire world put together. It's fair to judge Bitcoin's energy use by its tps, but the above is not true. Energy use and tps are, as you then acknowle…

Unfortunately for Bitcoin, it needs more than “many multiples” in order to actually handle function as a currency. At 4tps they’re several orders of magnitude short of what the market actually needs.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#972

Nic Carter's rebuttal to a Bloomberg comparison between Bitcoin/Visa, including assessments of total and per/transaction energy usage: "First of all, Bitcoin and Visa are fundamentally different systems. Bitcoin is a complete, self-contained monetary settlement system; Visa transactions are non-final credit transactions that rely on external underlying settlement rails. Visa relies on ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, the global…

Nic Carter's point is intentionally obtuse and belies his conflicted interests. The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy) [edit or rather worded differently if each Visa transaction consumed as much power as a Bitcoin transaction], it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces…

How do completely incorrect comments like this get upvoted?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#973

Nic Carter's rebuttal to a Bloomberg comparison between Bitcoin/Visa, including assessments of total and per/transaction energy usage: "First of all, Bitcoin and Visa are fundamentally different systems. Bitcoin is a complete, self-contained monetary settlement system; Visa transactions are non-final credit transactions that rely on external underlying settlement rails. Visa relies on ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, the global…

Nic Carter's point is intentionally obtuse and belies his conflicted interests. The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy) [edit or rather worded differently if each Visa transaction consumed as much power as a Bitcoin transaction], it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces…

This may arise from a misunderstanding of how Bitcoin works, but TPS have nothing to do with energy consumption.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#974

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nic Carter's point is intentionally obtuse and belies his conflicted interests. The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy) [edit or rather worded differently if each Visa transaction consumed as much power as a Bitcoin transaction], it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces…

This may arise from a misunderstanding of how Bitcoin works, but TPS have nothing to do with energy consumption.

That alone should say something.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#976

Nic Carter's rebuttal to a Bloomberg comparison between Bitcoin/Visa, including assessments of total and per/transaction energy usage: "First of all, Bitcoin and Visa are fundamentally different systems. Bitcoin is a complete, self-contained monetary settlement system; Visa transactions are non-final credit transactions that rely on external underlying settlement rails. Visa relies on ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, the global…

Nic Carter's point is intentionally obtuse and belies his conflicted interests. The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy) [edit or rather worded differently if each Visa transaction consumed as much power as a Bitcoin transaction], it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces…

> The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa... it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces

Scaling Bitcoin's tps does not increase its energy usage. The tps and energy usage vary independently of each other. Bitcoin does not require any more energy usage to handle more tps than Visa. In fact, if we include off-chain transactions which are settled on-chain it already can.

> The US Army protects the US not the dollar

What is the value of the dollar if the United States ceases to remain a sovereign polity? The dollar is part of the United States.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#978

If the goal is to educate the public on the scale of power involved, a comparison with a commonly used service would help a lot IMHO. Something like 'Bitcoin consumes 14 times the energy of Google and half (according rough estimates) that of Youtube' would make things easier to grasp before hitting the reader with country comparisons. FWIW here is my list of 'if a service were a country': Google Guatemala Bitcoin Arg…

That is correct, but not a fair comparison, imho. Google, as a centralized entity, is one of a few companies devoted to go 100% green. Bitcoin consuming that much energy is akin to saying that production of wine all over the world is 14x what's being produced in France. Where's the logic?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#979
post #878

A maximum of 178 things on the planet can consume >= to the electricity of Bitcoin. 99.44%/0.56% = ~178 (according to their estimate of 0.56% global use). So for the many comments invoking rhetorical comparisons: Bitcoin mining value per watt can be compared to no more than 178 things on Earth. Are we really saying there are only possibly 178 better uses for global energy than doing double SHA2 for no material value?…

You are comparing centralized entities to a decentralized one. I don't believe it's a fair comparison.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#980

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nic Carter's point is intentionally obtuse and belies his conflicted interests. The reality is that if you scaled up the bitcoin system linearly so it provided as much transaction capacity as Visa (let alone the entire world economy) [edit or rather worded differently if each Visa transaction consumed as much power as a Bitcoin transaction], it would require a number of times more power than the entire world produces…

How do completely incorrect comments like this get upvoted?

Well that might be because they’re correct my dude! Feel free to weigh in with your analysis. Nobody’s been able to spot a hole in the logic.
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