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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/
"Those critics of Bitcoin who point to its energy usage (as of this writing, ~75 terawatt hours per year) seem unwilling to acknowledge the energy usage that keeps the US dollar afloat. The US economy used almost 29,000 terawatt hours in 2019. As confirmed by the US Treasury Department, the value of the dollar is backed by all the goods and services in the US economy which would also include its energy sector. Furthe…
Bitcoin has a lot going for it. But these arguments are so incredibly stupid.
Would the energy sector go away if the U.S. switched to Bitcoin? The American economy? No? Then it isn't a cost inherent to the U.S. dollar.
For the love of god, we get it. What are no-coiners going to complain about when ethereum moves to proof of stake?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Bitcoin is completely autonomous If we're counting the footprint of Visa's 19,500 employees [1], we'd have to start counting the footprint of every Bitcoin miner and ASIC manufacturer. Which is (a) silly and (b) unlikely to affect a difference of orders of magnitude. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc .
> the footprint of every Bitcoin miner Do they have 1000s of office all around the world with 100s of thousands working in offices and branches like banking industry?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Would the U.S. Treasury disappear if we switched to Bitcoin? (Hint: look at countries that don't have their own currency. They still collect taxes and spend and borrow money.)
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.
If there really were global demand for a censorship resistant currency don’t you think there would be more merchants accepting BTC by now?
It’s not really directly related. Miners load hash rate to get a better chance at the next block, the transactions just go along for the ride. This would be true regardless of how much hash power is cumulative.
Um... Can you rephrase this such that people like me who aren't Bitcoin aficionados can understand it?
That's what hash power does.
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/
"Those critics of Bitcoin who point to its energy usage (as of this writing, ~75 terawatt hours per year) seem unwilling to acknowledge the energy usage that keeps the US dollar afloat. The US economy used almost 29,000 terawatt hours in 2019. As confirmed by the US Treasury Department, the value of the dollar is backed by all the goods and services in the US economy which would also include its energy sector. Furthe…
> the value of the dollar is backed by all the goods and services in the US economy which would also include its energy sector. Bitcoin has a lot going for it. But these arguments are so incredibly stupid. Would the energy sector go away if the U.S. switched to Bitcoin? The American economy? No? Then it isn't a cost inherent to the U.S. dollar.
Bitcoin is just a distributed ponzi scheme.
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.