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Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

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Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#111

Post by bitcurious »

jonathan-adly wrote: post #38

Power usage by itself is meaningless. The real question is the power providing utility or not. Like, no one thinks data centers for AWS are bad. They provide real benefit and utility. But, perhaps power wasted on cloth dryers and Christmas lights are a western frivolity. So, the real argument is Bitcoin useful or not. Which, like most things, is something that probably be left to the free market.

Bitcoin could be a very market-efficient means of meeting demand for money laundering, extortion, etc., and we could still declare it a useless waste.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#112

Post by quickthrower2 »

jonathan-adly wrote: post #38

Power usage by itself is meaningless. The real question is the power providing utility or not. Like, no one thinks data centers for AWS are bad. They provide real benefit and utility. But, perhaps power wasted on cloth dryers and Christmas lights are a western frivolity. So, the real argument is Bitcoin useful or not. Which, like most things, is something that probably be left to the free market.

Bitcoin is hardly used in day to day life. It is designed so that energy use increases with coin price. If Bitcoin became a mainstream currency used even by one country for a lot of things energy usage goes up even more.

I am ignoring a lot of things here: transactions per second can’t support it but let’s assume LN works well and also energy required to keep expanding may not be available (only one nearby star) which makes POW more Proof of Asic but potentially makes the network vulnerable.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#114

Post by sk55 »

mjburgess wrote: post #92
digging wrote: post #57

I'm not a crypto proponent per se, but I do feel the need to be reasonable about it, and this reads like pure emotional anti-cryptocurrency sentiment. (edit: while I still can, I'm going to jump in and repeat that I'm criticizing this as a bad article which isn't saying anything very meaningful on its own. Thanks everyone for doing the author's work for them and gathering more data. I won't be upset if it's proven th…

The "security" of btc cryptocurrency is proportional to how much energy it wastes; that's radically different than the banking system. The more billions it costs to run bitcoin, the more it costs to 51% attack it. If you can outwaste energy, you can hijack the system. It would be useful it some state, eg., russia or china, would just cut off networks and forge bitcoin network traffic -- and hence bring the whole thin…

Not really. Proof of stake offers a very energy efficient way to secure transactions. That is what Ethereum runs on.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#115

Post by glitchc »

015a wrote: post #28

The crypto industry financed a 2.3% expansion of the US's power generating capacity. I don't care what we're spending energy on. Being stingy about it just makes all of us poorer. There's a quadrillion-cubic-kilometer flaming ball of plasma in the sky. We have the ability to generate literally infinite electricity; and quite literally the only way we get to that is by increasing the amount of electricity we're using,…

There is a grain of truth in this statement. If we don't push our limits, how will we aspire to new ones?

A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or, what's a heaven for?

                                          - Robert Browning

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#116

Post by burnished »

digging wrote: post #57

I'm not a crypto proponent per se, but I do feel the need to be reasonable about it, and this reads like pure emotional anti-cryptocurrency sentiment. (edit: while I still can, I'm going to jump in and repeat that I'm criticizing this as a bad article which isn't saying anything very meaningful on its own. Thanks everyone for doing the author's work for them and gathering more data. I won't be upset if it's proven th…

Looks like it has a bigger share than early 2000s US aluminum processing (a notoriously electricity intensive process), which was using 1.5%

https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2003/data/papers/SS0...

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#117

Post by misnome »

digging wrote: post #57

I'm not a crypto proponent per se, but I do feel the need to be reasonable about it, and this reads like pure emotional anti-cryptocurrency sentiment. (edit: while I still can, I'm going to jump in and repeat that I'm criticizing this as a bad article which isn't saying anything very meaningful on its own. Thanks everyone for doing the author's work for them and gathering more data. I won't be upset if it's proven th…

> 1. There is no comparison made to the energy consumption of the traditional banking industry, which I am sure is not a particularly energy-efficient industry.

Despite declaring yourself not one, this (and every other one of your points) comes up _every single time_ crypto proponents are trying to seed FUD in any reporting about the energy usage of crypto. This is especially laughable when you then say

> ~2% of US power is generating over 1/3 of the world's Bitcoin.

It's good to know that it takes 2% of the US power grid to power 2.3 transactions per second.

By your own argument - unless the traditional banking industry tops out at 100% of US power usage for 115 transactions per second - it is definitely not worse than bitcoin.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#118

Post by boc »

digging wrote: post #57

I'm not a crypto proponent per se, but I do feel the need to be reasonable about it, and this reads like pure emotional anti-cryptocurrency sentiment. (edit: while I still can, I'm going to jump in and repeat that I'm criticizing this as a bad article which isn't saying anything very meaningful on its own. Thanks everyone for doing the author's work for them and gathering more data. I won't be upset if it's proven th…

> I'm not a crypto proponent per se

Yet you rolled out the standard crypto talking points flawlessly.

> Energy consumption is frankly not a phenomenon I give two shits about, as an environmentalist

Again, I suspect you aren't an environmentalist either. Please just be straightforward with your motivations here.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#119

Post by psychlops »

jkubicek wrote: post #65
jonathan-adly wrote: post #38

Power usage by itself is meaningless. The real question is the power providing utility or not. Like, no one thinks data centers for AWS are bad. They provide real benefit and utility. But, perhaps power wasted on cloth dryers and Christmas lights are a western frivolity. So, the real argument is Bitcoin useful or not. Which, like most things, is something that probably be left to the free market.

> Which, like most things, is something that probably be left to the free market. Except Bitcoin mining is a perfect example of why these things should NOT be left to the free market.

What better currency competition is out there?

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#120

Post by pjc50 »

015a wrote: post #28

The crypto industry financed a 2.3% expansion of the US's power generating capacity. I don't care what we're spending energy on. Being stingy about it just makes all of us poorer. There's a quadrillion-cubic-kilometer flaming ball of plasma in the sky. We have the ability to generate literally infinite electricity; and quite literally the only way we get to that is by increasing the amount of electricity we're using,…

Great, that means that when we expropriate the money launderers we get 2.3% more free power.

If a single one of these guys has processed a block with a single transaction for Hamas, they should go to jail for violating the sanctions. Bitcoin nodes should be required to do full KYC on everyone for whom they are processing transactions.

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