41–50 of 94 posts
China sure made the right choice to ban crypto. 0.5% of the world's energy is insane
You want to know what's insane? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage_of_the_United_Sta... .
> In the United States, crypto mining could cost residential and business ratepayers $1 billion a year, the researchers estimate. Is $1 billion a year across the whole country a significant number?
> In Upstate New York, where a quarter of US crypto mining takes place, the researchers find that electricity rates have gone up in response to rising demand. Their study demonstrates that because of bitcoin mining’s power usage, households paid an additional $165 million a year in energy costs, while businesses paid an extra $79 million. In China, where more than two-thirds of the world’s crypto mining took place ov…
I get that the article is about electricity, and not the industry's general impact on a region when it comes in.
That said, who has been to the North Country lately, i.e. really deep up there where these mines are? For those unaware, the jobs are basically:
- Dannemora prison
- One or two small colleges
- light tourism: the seasonal jobs around Lake Placid, niche interest in the 1,000 islands,
- some logging, but most of that area is a state park
- Closer, but not in commuting distance: Ft Drum, a dying dairy industry closer to Utica
It remains to be seen how many jobs come from an industry growing up there. But reading this, from Booth of all places, is sort of like saying electric costs have gone up in the Rust Belt because the first new industry in decades is moved there. NY fought tooth and nail to get Ft. Drum into Watertown/North Country in the 80's for a very good reason - that area is dying.
This is also putting aside that these mines are in dilapidated power plants (fighting the extensive rural (?) blight up there) and pulling ~green energy from the St. Lawrence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently it's around 56% renewables-generated electricity. https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/07/06/bi...
Luckily electricity is non-fungible so that the green electricity used by bitcoin does not create increased demand for fossil-fuel generated electricity elsewhere.
bitcoin literally pushes for increased renewable energy production, which helped fighting climate change more than any political bickering did in the past half a century.
Long-term, Bitcoin is reducing everyone’s electric bill by smoothing out the bathtub curve and making it economical to overprovision energy sources. Bitcoin mining can easily turn on and off as the price of energy fluctuates, so all of a sudden we have the ability to use energy sources like solar which need to be overprovisioned to ensure that e.g. bad weather doesn’t reduce grid capacity too much. Bitcoin mining jus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do realize that energy being used to mine crypto is generated in good part by those fossil fuels you care about, right? https://www.govtech.com/news/bitcoin-mining-in-upstate-new-y...
Apparently it's around 56% renewables-generated electricity. https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/07/06/bi...
This hardly seems like an objective, reputable source whose claims should be accepted at face value.
> In Upstate New York, where a quarter of US crypto mining takes place, the researchers find that electricity rates have gone up in response to rising demand. Their study demonstrates that because of bitcoin mining’s power usage, households paid an additional $165 million a year in energy costs, while businesses paid an extra $79 million. In China, where more than two-thirds of the world’s crypto mining took place ov…
> So correlation implies causation? Well, would you argue that people started mining bitcoins because energy became more expensive? The other direction looks more plausible, especially if you consider basic economic theory: as demand goes up, prices also go up.
I mean it can't be pirates cause global warming, they use wind energy after all.
So we conclude global warming cause pirates
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Pi...
Edit: it's the other way around, global warming eliminates pirates
When chain letters (e.g. the Send a Time pyramid scheme) caused impact to the postal system beyond what the system was designed to handle, to the detriment of the intended users of the system, chain letters were banned. Now, Bitcoin serves as a similar, though obfuscated, pyramid scheme that is detrimental to intended usage of the power system for productiviry or enjoyment. I see no reason not to apply the same solut…
Chain letters' sole purpose is to enrich early adopters at the expense of later participants.
While early adopters of cryptocurrencies frequently do reap windfall gains, it is not necessarily at the expense of later users as it is with chain letters. The early adopter benefits for cryptocurrencies are no different than early investors in a business that goes on to produce a popular and successful product.
Unlike chain letters cryptocurrencies provide a useful utility of a medium of exchange coupled with consensus based algorithmic scarcity. This is an attractive alternative to centrally planned fiat currencies that are persistently and intentionally debased over time.
Whether the power usage is worth the utilitarian benefits to societey is certainly a valid debate and hopefully will lead to more efficient protocols.
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