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Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

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Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#401

Post by hootbootscoot »

louloulou wrote: post #234
sterlind wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

y'all need to accept that PoW is a terrible, ghastly thing. I've even heard a theory that Satoshi didn't like it but published Bitcoin as is because he couldn't find a suitable alternative. if you find a way to make PoS viable and secure, you'll have saved the planet. work on that.

Literally everything good that humans have produced are proof of work. Proof of stake is the rent seeking that comes afterwards.

I have no notion of what metaphor you are referring to. In real life, POW is a waste of electricity that produces nothing external to proving that CPU cycles were wasted, with an ever-increasing difficulty in the case of Bitcoin (getting worse with time, on purpose)

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#402

Post by hootbootscoot »

hetspookjee wrote: post #122

Just copying another comment abotu the energy consumption of online adverising "The online advertising ecosystem resides in the core of the Internet, and it is the sole source of funding for many online services. Therefore, it is an essential factor in the analysis of the Internet's energy footprint. As a result, in 2016, online advertising consumed 20–282 TWh of energy. In the same year, the total infrastructure con…

why not (get rid of) both?

When do we auto-organize as a species and ditch these primitive blame games and Mutually-Assured-Destruction madness such as competitive wasteful economics systems that cause people to drive hours to a place they don't like to "work at a job" doing something that is useless for the overall group and displeasing for the person doing it, simply due to dumb plumbing not organizing us. Maybe we should ask some machines how to run ourselves... (partially joking, but you know what I mean...Where is our group common sense and ability to hive-mind when we need it?)

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#403

Post by hootbootscoot »

saint_angels wrote: post #54

would be cool to see research about total energy cost of traditional financial systems, that bitcoin is trying to replace

except that bitcoin doesn't replace any traditional financial systems. in the real world, crypto holders also have banks and buy and sell cryptocurrencies with/for fiat.

very few retailers of any quality/price/repute sell physical for bitcoin, let alone denominated in fixed prices in bitcoin, even at peak hysterical hype (right now)

apples priced in bitcoin would fluctuate wildly and you wouldn't be able to count on being able to eat any given day of the week buying food denominated in bitcoin. the reality is that bitcoin is an unregulated security. It's a volatile investment and it's fluctuations make 'fiat' currencies inflation/deflation pale in comparison.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#405

Post by hootbootscoot »

cryptica wrote: post #60
it_does_follow wrote: post #39

In my darker moments I've come to believe that accelerationism is the only viable pathway to save the planet, since nothing short of civilizational collapse seems to be capable of seriously reducing our carbon emissions. From that perspective this is great news!

I've also been hoping for the same thing. The faster the current system falls apart, the less painful it will be. The years of daily grind combined with a feeling of hopelessness is what hurts people the most and causes lasting resentment.

I have issue with the massive cost in other peoples lives you seem to be ok throwing away with such pronouncements.

We have to FIX our system, not make it worse. The reality of trying to force our entire civilization to commit mass suicide is a slow horrible intensification of all that is wrong with the world.

Please do your part to spread the word to your fellow nihilists. (by definition, not my opinion nor an insult)

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#406

Post by ohgodplsno »

landemva wrote: post #287
ohgodplsno wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know the billionaires have their wealth as unrealized gains; I chose my words carefully That they use as collateral to get loans from banks that actually have that money. "Billionaires don't actually have that money" is peak bootlicker logic.

No, the banks don't actually have the money. Banks are regulated and licensed to print money based on undercollateralized loans. A house mortgage with 20% down is designed to be undercollateralized. When the regulators and debt rating agencies don't do their jobs, it is easily apparent those loans were not fully collateralized. Therefore, the loans created money out of thin air. The banks are licensed to print money.

Big bootlicker energy here.

It doesn't matter if what your bank gives you isn't paper money. That's not the point. The point is, you go to the bank, you can buy absolutely anything you want with your loaned money, even if it's just a line in a database called fake_money_literally_just_printed.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#407

Post by ItsMonkk »

imtringued wrote: post #343
Nbox9 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. I know this is pedantic, but the competition is about computational power. Energy is a significant input. Let’s not ignore the benefit that the more computational power that is spent in the competition the more secure the blockchain is from 51% attacks. Maybe 134 TWh is too high of a price for such a limited use technology such as bitcoin. Maybe…

I don't really see how cryptocurrency is supposed to be a threat to banking. You can still implement banking on top of cryptocurrency. You know, through loans. Of course there is the caveat nobody is insane enough to agree to Bitcoin denominated debt. Dogecoin might work though.

We already have that. It's called Tether.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#408

Post by ab_testing »

This sounds like a really huge number and it is.

However when you compare it to the total world energy consumption, it is less than 0.1%.

Looking at this data set [1], the total energy consumption in the world was around 160,000 Thw.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#409

Post by ls15 »

otterley wrote: post #398
ls15 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me, how many people seem not to see this point

Because it's not actually happening, if you look at the amount of money invested in cryptocurrencies and their transaction volume for goods and services compared to fiat currencies.

Very few people watched videos online in 1999, but some people predicted video sites like Youtube back then already. Traditional media called them crazy. Nowadays, people are using barely anything else than the internet for watching videos.

Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021

#410

Post by ls15 »

alkonaut wrote: post #226
hihihihi1234 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't have faith in the mainstream financial system and are fleeing for the exits.

And I don’t mind. So long as they don’t flush the climate down the toilet or affect the mainstream system in any way such as by reducing tax revenue.

I am afraid, that replacing the mainstream system may not work without affecting it.
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