Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

sciencedirect.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 436 posts

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#41

Post by crumbshot »

eigenvalue wrote: post #6

This is about the furthest thing from “science”. Just sensationalist propaganda. It’s so far from being even remotely plausible. Maybe 1 BTC is responsible for $0.49 of “damage” if you could ever actually quantify it. Most of this electricity comes from the cheapest source of power, which is hydro.

> Most of this electricity comes from the cheapest source of power, which is hydro.

This has become almost a religious belief amongst cryptocurrency acolytes, but it's simply not true.

--

Edit: please see my comment¹ and piplikoc's comment² below for more detail on this.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26342411

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26342366

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#42

Post by asutekku »

HPsquared wrote: post #27

The rise of Bitcoin is a reflection of low trust in the existing currencies. Low trust leads to inefficiency.

Absolutely not. Bitcoin’s value increases because it’s a speculative asset and there’s almost zero reasons for it to go down since it’s not really tied to anything tangible.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#43

Post by meheleventyone »

api wrote: post #3

PoW is wasteful as hell, but I am always skeptical of these calculations. It seems like an awfully long chain of causality to quantify. The error bars have to be huge.

Look at it this way we know that PoW is wasteful as hell and because of that causes external issues on a huge scale. If we don't try to work out what those issues are and how big their impact is how would we ever deal with them? Putting our heads in the sand won't make them go away and the link details their methodology and results if you wish to quibble with them. Particularly as it addresses estimate accuracy directly.

More generally the whole external cost of PoW is definitely a case of techno-utopianism meeting the real world and a lot of proponents wanting to put on blinkers even though this study shows that crypto-currency is currently a net social positive. Literally any indication that it has any negative outcomes elicits very strange responses.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#44

Post by chapium »

eigenvalue wrote: post #6

This is about the furthest thing from “science”. Just sensationalist propaganda. It’s so far from being even remotely plausible. Maybe 1 BTC is responsible for $0.49 of “damage” if you could ever actually quantify it. Most of this electricity comes from the cheapest source of power, which is hydro.

Lets not forget opportunity cost. That may be hydro power but it's offsetting green power consumption.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#45

Post by delecti »

eigenvalue wrote: post #22
ath92 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy is not an infinite resource. The energy used to mine bitcoin could have been used for something else instead.

That’s not true at all. There is a huge amount of stranded power. Electricity is not fungible across large distances. Otherwise people in Texas wouldn’t be paying $9,000 per mwh during the storm— power certainly didn’t cost that much in other states then.

Texas is a pretty disingenuous and cherry picked example considering they deliberately siloed themselves off from the other two major power grids of the country. Energy within a power grid is fairly fungible.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#46

Post by Cypher »

ath92 wrote: post #12
eigenvalue wrote: post #6

This is about the furthest thing from “science”. Just sensationalist propaganda. It’s so far from being even remotely plausible. Maybe 1 BTC is responsible for $0.49 of “damage” if you could ever actually quantify it. Most of this electricity comes from the cheapest source of power, which is hydro.

Energy is not an infinite resource. The energy used to mine bitcoin could have been used for something else instead.

Sounds like a naïve view.

There's a limit of how far you can transport electricity, the majority of methane gas burnt and wasted.

Mining gold could be used on other things, energy going into dropping bombs could be used for other things... sadly it's just idealism.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#47

Post by sherlock_h »

diegoperini wrote: post #18
sherlock_h wrote: post #9

All these Crypto posts are getting pretty tiring.

What's special about today and increasing frequency of these posts?

Nothing special - that’s the problem. I consider a good HN post one where I learn something from the post and the discussion underneath it. Crypto posts for me at least typically don’t bring me learning from either. Discussions tend to all be along pretty similar patterns - either you’re pro or against. If pro, you talk about decentralization and money transfer in developing countries, if con about energy usage and criminal activity. Not that interesting

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#49

Post by random5634 »

pc86 wrote: post #31
ryanmarsh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much damage is the current financial system responsible for?

Whataboutism has no place in any intelligent discourse.

If you think this “scientific” study qualifies as a contributor to intelligent discourse think again.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#50

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

te_chris wrote: post #29
HPsquared wrote: post #27

The rise of Bitcoin is a reflection of low trust in the existing currencies. Low trust leads to inefficiency.

Oh please. It has almost no use as a currency, it's the rise of an asset bubble.

Low trust decisions are not always rational.
Post reply on HN