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Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

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Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#61

Post by temp8964 »

SamBam wrote: post #42
temp8964 wrote: post #6

> 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?

$10 per household for every household in the US? It may not sound like much, but when it's something the vast majority never asked for, that's entirely happening to line the pockets of the few, and is damaging the environment at the same time? Sounds like those households should get a say in it.

You forgot the “business” part.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#62

Post by helen___keller »

MrRadar wrote: post #52
mitchellst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good question without an obvious answer. Best reasons to think it might be. 1) It's not evenly distributed over 330M residents. It's concentrated in certain areas, and we don't have a single nationwide electricity market where supply and demand operate. So it is concentrated in places like Upstate New York and Texas. Spread over few people. 2) It's priced into a daily necessity for people. The poor are the one…

Would anyone who downvoted this comment please write why you did? It seems well-reasoned, factually correct, and does not violate any of the HN guidelines.

I thought it was a good comment except for the inflammatory zinger at the end:

> a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set.

For those in silicon valley or wall street this is probably a downvote. And for those who are fans of bitcoin it is definitely a downvote.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#63

Post by fleddr »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #47
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it's around 56% renewables-generated electricity. https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/07/06/bi...

Your link is press-release like article. It cites a self-reporting based survey published by the Bitcoin Mining Council, a "voluntary global forum of Bitcoin mining companies and other companies in the Bitcoin industry", that goes so far as to claim Bitcoin is "one of the most sustainable industries globally". This hardly seems like an objective, reputable source whose claims should be accepted at face value.

The very point of that council, which is brand new, is to give transparency and insight into the energy mix used to mine Bitcoin.

You should never take any claim at face value, but it's quite lazy to dismiss their data without backing it up.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#64

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #17

It's interesting that now that there are proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies the "cryptocurrencies are polluting the planet" is now becoming "Bitcoin is polluting the planet" . What I'm wondering is if Bitcoin itself could one day switch to proof-of-stake? Is this something the Bitcoin community may consider if proof-of-stakes turns out to work and be secure? Is this something that is even remotely possible?

There is strong consensus among bitcoin developers that PoS is inherently inappropriate and insecure.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#65

Post by fleddr »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #17

It's interesting that now that there are proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies the "cryptocurrencies are polluting the planet" is now becoming "Bitcoin is polluting the planet" . What I'm wondering is if Bitcoin itself could one day switch to proof-of-stake? Is this something the Bitcoin community may consider if proof-of-stakes turns out to work and be secure? Is this something that is even remotely possible?

Not a chance. Bitcoin proponents see Proof of Work as essential for security and the highest degree of decentralization.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#67

Post by keymone »

baseballdork wrote: post #59
keymone wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you should be ok with market participants paying market price for a finite resource sold on a market.

Why? This is not a free market, nor a market price that reflects externalities of generating that energy. I'm not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets.

market is definitely not free at this point because of how much subsidy fossil producers receive from corrupt politicians.

doubly funny your worries about externalities, when bitcoin actually meaningfully drives renewable production that is going to be essential in reducing those externalities.

> not okay with 0.5% of the earth's energy being consumed to produce sha sums for the sole purpose of mining speculative assets

packed as much manipulation and misinformation as you could into that one, didn't you?

i'm more than ok with significant chunk of energy's energy going into ensuring security of a global decentralized settlement layer and currency with predictable issuance policy that can't be fucked up by politicians that suddenly realize they need to print a couple trillions to cover up how much they stole.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#68

Post by MrRadar »

helen___keller wrote: post #62
MrRadar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would anyone who downvoted this comment please write why you did? It seems well-reasoned, factually correct, and does not violate any of the HN guidelines.

I thought it was a good comment except for the inflammatory zinger at the end: > a neat intellectual toy and speculative asset for the Silicon Valley / Wall Street set. For those in silicon valley or wall street this is probably a downvote. And for those who are fans of bitcoin it is definitely a downvote.

While I understand that you don't like the way that's phrased, those are definitely two of the main groups currently involved in cryptocurrency. The only other group I can think of that has seen significant uptake of cryptocurrencies (and the only group actually using it as a currency) are people engaged in criminal activities (whether that's evading capital controls, money laundering, drug dealing, or ransomware).

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#69

Post by fleddr »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #38
wyager wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the world’s energy do you think the petrodollar system consumes?

That energy has output besides random hashes.

Can you send me some of these random hashes? Since they're worthless?

Bitcoin secures over a trillion USD. 1 in 6 Americans own Bitcoin and user growth is faster than the rise of the internet and Facebook combined. Companies/Wallstreet are in, VCs are in, the first country has used it as a legal currency.

And yet you're still on this 12 year old narrative that it's worth zero?

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#70

Post by reginold »

wyager wrote: post #19

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…

Got sources? Curious to read about it. Is this a future effect or already happening?
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