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The Bitcoin Energy Argument That Nobody Makes

leif.io

21–24 of 24 posts

Re: The Bitcoin Energy Argument That Nobody Makes

#21
I think the author actually does a good job summing up the usual arguments given to dismiss Bitcoin not being environment friendly but I don't think they are refuted.

Bitcoin uses less energy than completely useless things (like Christmas lights) and way way way less energy than actual harmful things (videogames). However we just can't stop taking about how harmful Bitcoin is to the environment and if anyone suggested banning gold for similar reasons they would simply be laughed out of the room.

Honestly it looks like there are no good Bitcoin externalities that can be pointed out, so let's just zero in into this one, however inconsistent we'll be towards other industries.

Re: The Bitcoin Energy Argument That Nobody Makes

#22

I think the author actually does a good job summing up the usual arguments given to dismiss Bitcoin not being environment friendly but I don't think they are refuted. Bitcoin uses less energy than completely useless things (like Christmas lights) and way way way less energy than actual harmful things (videogames). However we just can't stop taking about how harmful Bitcoin is to the environment and if anyone suggeste…

The author does point out your Christmas light comparison but identifies a key distinction: for Christmas lights, the point is the colorful lighting for human enjoyment. That's the upside and the energy cost is the downside. Coming up with a lower-energy way to generate the same colorful lighting will save energy.

For Bitcoin, the destruction of value is the point. The nature of proof-of-work is that you continuously expend more resources than a hypothetical attacker possibly could. If resources get cheaper or more abundant, you must burn more of them to compensate, because your attacker can too and you always have to outpace them. So Bitcoin incentivizes using an "expensive" amount of energy no matter how "cheap" energy gets.

Re: The Bitcoin Energy Argument That Nobody Makes

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying this as the most ignorant sack-of-shit 28 year-old you're ever likely to meet, does this then mean that energy prices may indeed reduce over time and go back to their figure from several years ago in equivocal value once inflation is taken into consideration? And do you have any sources to show this has happened before?

Yes, in inflation-adjusted (real) terms, energy costs have generally decreased. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.php?t=p... and https://www.in2013dollars.com/Electricity/price-inflation Since electricity hasn't been around for that long (relatively), another way to look at it is the cost of light. We take it for granted but being able to do anything at night was really a luxury for the rich for mu…

You're amazing for sharing this with me, thank you so much.

Re: The Bitcoin Energy Argument That Nobody Makes

#24

I actually agree that the carbon-intensiveness of the power source is no more relevant for Bitcoin than it is for any other use of energy. We use energy to do things we think are valuable. All of us do. If the distribution of costs and benefits of using that energy is out-of-whack, then our focus should be on aligning them better. Carbon-intensive energy use in many ways does a bad job of aligning those costs and ben…

Author here. I agree, me not liking it is not a great point. I think a stronger point would have been:

If you take the energy usage of anything you need to ask: "Does the positives of the thing justify this energy usage?". Let's say the current energy consumption of the Bitcoin network is X. You will find people saying "X is totally justified for the upsides the network brings" and you will find people that say no to that. But if you ask the yes people then: "What about 2X, 4X, 100X?" More and more yeses will switch to no. Of course you will find some people that will say "A power consumption of infinity is justified for the Bitcoin network and I rather have that than a car a house $other_thing_energy_consumption_thing" but I doubt this will the majority.

And this is the fundamental point tried to make. With rising Bitcoin prices the power consumption will cross every threshold without changing the positives that the network brings. I don't see a way to convert the people who say "it's NOT worth it" to "yes it is worth it" without affecting the Bitcoin price.

If you compare that to Christmas light there is a big difference. If you have people that say: "I don't like that Christmas lights use so much power" we can think of multiple solution to decrease the power usage without affecting the upsides proportionally: Can you compromise on using Christmas lights a week later in the year? Can you commit to slowly changing your existing lights to more power efficient ones? Can you use them for an hour less per day? And you can build incentives and legislation around that. I know that even in this space there are hard liners on both sides but I believe it is completely feasible to reduce the power consumption without affecting the upsides in the same way.

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