Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#91

Post by eloff » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:36 AM UTC

zepto wrote: post #85

slashdev wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazis famously confiscated gold. At least if they shutdown the internet you still own your bitcoin.

The Nazis can confiscate the hard drives where your keys are stored. And - it’s not going to help you against the Nazis if you can’t transact it. As to gold - that misses the point. Of course it can be taken from you. However unless that happens, you can still transact it. People escaped the Nazis using gold to pay their way.

It's better in some ways and worse in others. It could be a lot easier to hide a key than a gold bar. You could still use bitcoin to buy your way to freedom, and there would be a black market for it if there's any way to get online, which there will be. The value is supported outside the country.

It's not clear to me that gold is superior in that use case.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#92

Post by copumpkin » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:37 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #8

Lack of market liquidity is what will burst Bitcoin bubble.

The market is more liquid than it ever has been. But yeah, not as liquid as I or many others would like.

But if you really think it's gonna burst, there are plenty of eager sellers who would love to sell you some put options on LedgerX :) very above board, and the only CFTC-regulated physically settled BTC options exchange out there

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#93

Post by madrox » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:37 AM UTC

There are a lot of arguments against Bitcoin, and the energy consumption argument has always struck me as the most asinine. It's an anchoring fallacy rooted in the fact that bitcoin's energy consumption is easy to estimate with a fair amount of confidence. However, because Bitcoin is easy and other industries are hard, we do not scrutinize the utility of any other industry in this way, though data suggests global video gaming is a comparable energy hog[1][2]. We have no way of estimating the energy consumption of the finance industry, and I wouldn't trust any attempt. Bitcoin is being compared to countries instead of other industries because it looks alarming, but many global industries that rely on energy look like this.

I hate pointing this out, because I get misconstrued as a Bitcoin supporter. I hold no Bitcoin, and I never have because of other principles. However, criticisms such as this one don't create constructive conversation, in my experience. Unless we want to start regulating what you can and cannot use energy for in your home, there's no point to thinking this way. The fossil fuel angle, in my mind, is simply a sign that we need to get off fossil fuels, Bitcoin or not.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257768246_Electrici... - US energy consumption by video game consoles in the US alone was 16 TWh in 2010

[2] https://grist.org/article/video-games-consume-more-electrici... - Globally, PC gaming (not console gaming) was estimated at 75 TWh in 2018

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#94

Post by sp332 » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:39 AM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #41

DennisP wrote: post #27

> The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that about two-thirds of it is from fossil fuels. Nice to see actual data on this. Bitcoin advocates keep claiming it's mostly renewable.

If that were true, we'd be seeing fluctuations in how frequently blocks are being created depending on where the sun shines and where it's windy. Water power is more stable but not enough to explain the TWhs all disappearing into bitcoin every year. No need to do a lot of work surveying miners to disprove these trolls, also they'll just come up with a new argument like that it's the payment method of the future and t…

I am kinda surprised it's not higher, just because solar and wind energy is so cheap now I assumed it would be attractive.

That said, even if it was run with renewable energy, at this point in time it would still contribute to emissions indirectly. That power could have been used to displace fossil fuel usage, so diverting it to bitcoin hashing causes a net emissions increase for... very little benefit.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#95

Post by tempestn » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:41 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #59

All the such energy/BTC arguments miss that BTC (and other crypto) mining in space has no limit and will become feasible when Starships start flying. And it looks to be more profitable than asteroid mining :) People frequently raise the issue of cooling in space while missing the fact that at 60C 1m2 radiates away 700w - enough to cool 3-4 mining GPUs which can basically be just slapped on that heatsink.

Surely the cost of blasting mining rigs into space would vastly outweigh any disadvantages of keeping them on the ground.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#96

Post by joshspankit » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:42 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #93

There are a lot of arguments against Bitcoin, and the energy consumption argument has always struck me as the most asinine. It's an anchoring fallacy rooted in the fact that bitcoin's energy consumption is easy to estimate with a fair amount of confidence. However, because Bitcoin is easy and other industries are hard, we do not scrutinize the utility of any other industry in this way, though data suggests global vid…

I might be a little rusty, but don’t we know exactly how much calculating is being done (measured in M/G/T/P/E hashes/second)?

And don’t we also have fairly accurate measurement of how much electricity it takes to calculate those hashes (assuming everyone is using this year’s tech)?

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#97

Post by civilized » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:43 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #93

There are a lot of arguments against Bitcoin, and the energy consumption argument has always struck me as the most asinine. It's an anchoring fallacy rooted in the fact that bitcoin's energy consumption is easy to estimate with a fair amount of confidence. However, because Bitcoin is easy and other industries are hard, we do not scrutinize the utility of any other industry in this way, though data suggests global vid…

We can compare transaction fees. Bitcoin transaction fees average $12 right now, which IIRC is comparable to bank fees for wiring cash. (Of course with bank wires you might have more security, at least in the developed world...)

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#98

Post by ketamine__ » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #63

ketamine__ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cardano doesn't have smart contracts yet. How many years has it been? How can they still be top ranked?

It’s like gen 3 crypto, incepted in 2017. I’m a believer in their platform and governance models, and enjoy their fast, cheap transactions today. IOHK is delivering something with vast consequence, generally on schedule. They will lag until dev adoption takes off, but then I have high hopes for the network and protocol to deliver on early crypto promises.

Yeah, but every blockchain that isn't used much has fast transactions. And even with smart contracts they will be missing layer 2. It's a long time to wait.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#99

Post by madrox » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:49 AM UTC

joshspankit wrote: post #96

madrox wrote: post #93

There are a lot of arguments against Bitcoin, and the energy consumption argument has always struck me as the most asinine. It's an anchoring fallacy rooted in the fact that bitcoin's energy consumption is easy to estimate with a fair amount of confidence. However, because Bitcoin is easy and other industries are hard, we do not scrutinize the utility of any other industry in this way, though data suggests global vid…

I might be a little rusty, but don’t we know exactly how much calculating is being done (measured in M/G/T/P/E hashes/second)? And don’t we also have fairly accurate measurement of how much electricity it takes to calculate those hashes (assuming everyone is using this year’s tech)?

We do, which is why it's so attractive to look at Bitcoin's energy consumption. The result is a big number, but we don't know how bad this number actually is because we don't have fairly accurate measurements of any other industry to compare it to. We can't answer the first questions that arise from this kind of analysis. For example, is Bitcoin the most energy intense industry, or is it really just because computing in general is energy intense? What percentage of overall computing is taken up by bitcoin? Are there other computing segments that are worse? We can't answer these questions very well, and even if we could the only way to regulate it would be to limit what we can do with our computers. Last I checked, the HN community hated such suggestions.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#100

Post by scotty79 » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 12:49 AM UTC

Bitcoin is just a way of funneling money from financial markets into energy production.

Since we will need way more energy to produce out carbon free all electric future and solar is cheapest way to get new energy already I believe that bitcoin will eventually lead to more investment in renewables.

And since bitcoin mining is variable load that can easily be adjusted to momentary demand for electricity I think it will solve the problem of storing energy from renewables. Why store energy if you can produce vastly more than is needed and use excess whenever available to mine bitcoin?