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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

#81

Post by G3rn0ti »

flowersjeff wrote: post #41
G3rn0ti wrote: post #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:/…

Thanks so much for that read :-)

You’re welcome. The article also gives some interesting insights into the mining business.

I actually I would love to see some Bitcoin miners to comment about this whole topic more often on HN. I know at least some of them should be lurking here but for some reason decide to keep completely silent.

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

#82

Post by giorgioz »

zepto wrote: post #73
giorgioz wrote: post #61

There is no paper/overview of how those 2 values are calculated. One questions that comes to mind is: Is the energy consumption of VISA transactions calculated based on their servers energy consumption? So now what about the energy consumption of the whole VISA company? Visa has 19,500 employees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc . Does Bitcoin employees 19500 people full-time to work? Time is interchangeable wit…

> So now what about the energy consumption of the whole VISA company? Visa has 19,500 employees Ok - but then you need to include all the exchanges and wallet developers etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc . Does Bitcoin employees 19500 people full-time to work? Time is interchangeable with money and money with electricity/CO2 emissions Maybe, when you include all the miners and the other parts of the ecosyst…

> Ok - but then you need to include all the exchanges and wallet developers etc.

Yes indeed we should consider all factors. For Bitcoins we should count the number of active full-time people employed as miners and developers.

I feel like the amount of people required to maintain a system should be counted in green efforts. Like for example bio supermarkets they provide you with products without packaging. Example you get your cereals from a giant glass container to your reusable container. Now that requires extra effort on handling/trasportation/refrigeration/storage. If all those things require a lot of more time we should consider the time of X people vs the saving in Y plastic or the saving in Z plastic.

It might turn out that Bitcoin employees less/equal/more people time for transaction. People's time is very expensive.

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

#83

Post by noxer »

coralreef wrote: post #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.

But you dont need PoW for being decentralized, permission less and censorship resistant.

See https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html instead and ignore visa/mastercard

PoW is still the worst even worse than than paper money.

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

#85

Post by hombre_fatal »

The judgemental overtone of these comparisons never makes sense to me. We supposedly draw the line on how others spend their energy when it comes to bitcoin and nowhere else.

Animal agriculture is a great place to look when it comes to senseless energy expenditure just to produce products that please our taste buds, if this were something we actually cared about, but we don't. 800-1200kWh are consumed to prop up a single dairy cow every year, just to produce a product that tastes good. 250M+ dairy cows in the world.

It's just so tempting and convenient to bemoan things we happen to not partake in, and then we pat ourselves on the back as if we are avoiding it for ecological/energy reasons.

It's a bit boring to see on HN every week, mostly because it's a cesspit of world view confirmation and anti-bitcoin circlejerking rather than a spark of intellectual curiosity.

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

#86

Post by noxer »

G3rn0ti wrote: post #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:/…

https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html As expected PoW is by far the worst. Worse than paper money.

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

#87

Post by coralreef »

UncleMeat wrote: post #65
coralreef wrote: post #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.

> Not sure why Visa is a relevant comparison. Because humans are deciding on whether to use BTC or another option for handling payments. This means that we must decide whether "decentralization, permissionlessness, and censorship resistance" are worth the astronomical other costs.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1

M1 Money supply graph.

As your purchasing power gets eroded away ("stolen" by central banks), we each decide for ourselves how much we want to participate in the propping up a broken system.

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

#88

Post by noxer »

savaka wrote: post #44

"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…

Its the other way around. Money is just a made up thing to reduce friction in the economy. Think of an economy where people would still need to "buy" stuff with other stuff. That would waste a lot more energy and straight out would make our economy impossible.

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

#89

Post by cesarb »

D13Fd wrote: post #64
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17

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/

Intuitively, it seems to me that the 741 kWh number for a single transaction cannot be a marginal number (i.e., the cost of the transaction itself without factoring in overhead). That's just way too high - it would be around $100 in electricity per transaction. The difference is important because as Bitcoin adoption increases the number of transactions will increase and the cost-per-transaction will fall dramatically…

> The difference is important because as Bitcoin adoption increases the number of transactions will increase

No, the maximum number of transactions per block is fixed (actually, the maximum size of a block is fixed, but there's a limit to how small each transaction can be).

> and the cost-per-transaction will fall dramatically.

No, because of the limit on the number of transactions, the cost per transaction will increase (users have to pay a higher per-transaction fee to increase the chance of it being included in a block, and miners are incentivized to use the extra income from transaction fees to buy more power).

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

#90

Post by coralreef »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #80
coralreef wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/real_vijay/status/968854238095753216?lan... 1/ There are four stages that all market-based monetary goods pass through in their evolution to becoming a fully fledged money: 1. Collectible 2. Store of Value 3. Medium of exchange 4. Unit of account

How many examples of this exist besides gold and silver?

Depends how far back you go. I'm not a historian, but there are obviously local systems of currency; some used gems, feathers, etc.

Rai stones were used by islanders as a ledger and store of value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

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