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Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

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Re: Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

#32

Yeah, but does this compare the cost of creation of the currency? Isn't that what's (fallaciously) being compared here? How much does it cost to create a US dollar, to be able to have transactions with it? Did it take 100 years of faith in the US credit to establish that? How much energy was that?

I'm not super hip to how BTC works, but doesn't a coin get created in the process of verifying a transaction? Like mining bitcoins involves finding constants that will produce so many zeros when appended to the record of the transaction and hashed, and you earn a bitcoin when you find such a constant

Re: Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

#33

Yeah, but does this compare the cost of creation of the currency? Isn't that what's (fallaciously) being compared here? How much does it cost to create a US dollar, to be able to have transactions with it? Did it take 100 years of faith in the US credit to establish that? How much energy was that?

What kind of last ditch attempt of an argument is this to make crypto look better. By that logic we're going to need to incorporate the energy required to dig the ore out of the ground to make crypto rigs and the entire history of computing into the equation.

All that's relevant is what it costs now or else we're going back to the beginning of the universe

Re: Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

#35
Not sure why Visa is a relevant comparison.

I can setup a dozen nodes on AWS and build a crypto with a million times the transaction capacity of Bitcoin. Obviously the downside to this is centralization; someone can be banned or censoredfor any reason.

Blockchains are first decentralized, permissionless, censorship resistant solutions.

Re: Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

#36
So another story about Bitcoin‘s energy consumption. Sigh. What we should really be interested in is its actual carbon foot print. You can’t just translate energy usage into CO2 emissions. These are a function of geolocation and energy efficiency of the underlying hardware. It’s actually pretty tricky to calculate that.

If anybody's interested, here is a careful analysis of Bitcoin's carbon foot print (2019): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...

TL;DR: While there is this "energy consumption of Argentina" number in circulation implying Bitcoin's carbon emissions equates that of a whole developed country, in reality this number is closer to that of Kansas City.

Re: Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

#38
post #28

Yeah, but does this compare the cost of creation of the currency? Isn't that what's (fallaciously) being compared here? How much does it cost to create a US dollar, to be able to have transactions with it? Did it take 100 years of faith in the US credit to establish that? How much energy was that?

It costs about 16 cents to make a $20 bill. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm In truth, if I factor in the establishment of the United States and several hundred years of money policy, it'll be higher. But for a fair comparison with Bitcoin, that'd be unfair, right? Because the US's money policy is obviously historically tied to Britain's, so I should include that too. And Britain was adapting th…

How much does it cost to run the US treasury though?

Re: Bitcoin network average energy consumption per transaction compared to VISA

#40

I mean, I know people are commenting on whether the comparison is valid, but regardless, the BTC energy cost at at 741 kWh for a single transaction is pretty close to the average monthly household energy usage in the US of 867 kWh [1]. That seems pretty nuts on its face to me. [1] https://electricityplans.com/kwh-kilowatt-hour-can-power/

To put it in perspective, a single bitcoin transaction can power the average american's household electricity needs for... an entire month.

What is that in money, 50 bucks? (Live in Germany, we have very high energy prices, so I relly don't know. Single in 50sqm Appartment, paying 47euros per month for a 100% renewable plan.)
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