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Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

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Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#91

Post by SwimSwimHungry »

o_p wrote: post #86
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry my dude, but we are all paying for this in the ridiculous carbon emissions, whether we we are part of this experiment or not. Save the snark.

Its not BTC miners fault that energy is priced incorrectly. We shouldnt waste any energy into powering the armies of the world, lets just not fight, right? But here we are.

I'm not fighting here. Your comment came off as dismissive to some growing and legitimate concerns.

And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy. Stop handwaving away the problem, because it's inconvenient for you to hear.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#92

Post by shp0ngle »

camgunz wrote: post #13

Every time I'm like "BTC is roasting the planet" people come out of the woodwork to remind me about renewable energy. Funny I don't see any of them here....

Any energy mining bitcoin is clean by definition, because Bitcoin is good for whole mankind.

By definition.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#93

Post by maxerickson »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #71

The more I see stories like this, the more I've come to realize that we really screwed up by allowing this technological experiment to get out of hand. Not to sound pedantic, but our future generations are going to come to regret this when our planet is a toasted marshmallow, because we couldn't stop being greedy.

It's reasonably likely that there will be a run on dollars at some point.

If/when it happens, the bitcoin network collapsing is a pretty likely outcome.

(what I mean by a run on dollars is that lots of people may decide they want dollars instead of bitcoin, so the people with dollars won't have to pay as much for bitcoin, and then the people who want dollars will have to accept less for their bitcoin, and then…)

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#94

Post by bransonf »

It’s a simple equation: So long as there is more money in mining BTC than there is cost in energy to mine it, mining will proceed.

No entity in the world can control the price of crypto. But, we can and already do regulate energy production.

I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere.

Seriously, what are the current best arguments against levying such a disincentive?

Moreover, if energy were priced correctly (its toll on the climate priced in) would BTC become higher in value? That is, we have a supply, increasing at a rate fixed between the arbitrage of energy and mining efficiency. If energy were to become more expensive, the growth in supply would slow. Assuming demand remains constant or continues to grow as well, the only way for price to go is up.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#95

Post by elil17 »

lwansbrough wrote: post #22
camgunz wrote: post #13

Every time I'm like "BTC is roasting the planet" people come out of the woodwork to remind me about renewable energy. Funny I don't see any of them here....

"It's renewable therefore I can waste as much of it as I want."

Exactly. If you're on grid, unless and limiting yourself to times when there's a surplus, every KW of clean electricity you use is a KW of dirty, natural gas or coal peaker plant electricity someone else has to use. If you've got an off-grid solar set up, you're just bidding up the price of PV panels.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#96

Post by rtkwe »

hparadiz wrote: post #33
lwansbrough wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's renewable therefore I can waste as much of it as I want."

It's true though. You can throw up a 1kw system for under 1k now.

Miners aren't building their own solar arrays right now and even if they were until we're throwing away wind or solar power constantly any energy burned to work on a coin is energy that could have just gone into serving existing loads.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#97

Post by o_p »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #91
o_p wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not BTC miners fault that energy is priced incorrectly. We shouldnt waste any energy into powering the armies of the world, lets just not fight, right? But here we are.

I'm not fighting here. Your comment came off as dismissive to some growing and legitimate concerns. And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy. Stop handwaving away the problem, because it's inconvenient for you to hear.

BTC miners buy the energy to power their nodes and that cost is passed to the users in transaction fees.

The only legitimate criticism here may be that energy prices dont account for the externalities of carbon emissions. But thats irrelevant of how the energy is actually used

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#98

Post by tshaddox »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #87
caterama wrote: post #68

Who cares? Everyone is fixated on Bitcoin... there are tons of energy inefficient processes out there. The solution has nothing to do with Bitcoin... environmental impact needs to be priced into energy itself, whatever the application. This is a failure of the markets (and therefore ourselves). Bitcoin is a scapegoat.

Here's the problem with this sentiment. Bitcoin isn't replacing anything. Not pre-existing fiat currency, not banks, nothing. Bitcoin only adds to the problem at an alarming rate. Bitcoin is certainly not a scapegoat. It's a massive problem and, largely, a symptom of human greed that must be put in check.

I think that’s highly unlikely. Surely the people mining Bitcoin would be doing something else if Bitcoin didn’t exist. Or to think of it the other way, if there was some better way of making money with electricity then the Bitcoin miners would be doing that instead.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#99

Post by SwimSwimHungry »

maxerickson wrote: post #93
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #71

The more I see stories like this, the more I've come to realize that we really screwed up by allowing this technological experiment to get out of hand. Not to sound pedantic, but our future generations are going to come to regret this when our planet is a toasted marshmallow, because we couldn't stop being greedy.

It's reasonably likely that there will be a run on dollars at some point. If/when it happens, the bitcoin network collapsing is a pretty likely outcome. (what I mean by a run on dollars is that lots of people may decide they want dollars instead of bitcoin, so the people with dollars won't have to pay as much for bitcoin, and then the people who want dollars will have to accept less for their bitcoin, and then…)

@maxerickson

That ultimately will be the end game. I'd argue that most of the folks that bought into Bitcoin do not, in fact, share in the an-cap libertarian utopia of an economy entirely detached from the US Dollar. Folks are going to want their payday, even folks like Michael Saylor and Elon Musk.

These guys aren't HODLing for charity. They want to exit before the rest of the peanut gallery does.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#100

Post by bohadi »

627467 wrote: post #11
epinephrinios wrote: post #10

It would be great if the gigantic Bitcoin energy demand leads to renewable energy breakthroughs.

Incentives are aligned, imo

Could Bitcoin really bootstrap ourselves up the Kardashev scale? Amazing story.

Please put tulip bubble in new context.

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