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A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

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Re: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

#2
Curious questions:

Are we converting increase in thermodynamic entropy with decrease in information entropy (with some loss)?

What if we use bitcoins mined by renewable resources (for e.g. Hydroelectric generator) to purchase carbon credits? What would the energy balance and economics look like?

Re: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

#6
I think everyone involved in this project should be ashamed. Energy shouldn't be wasted into bruteforcing sha1 checksums of lists of transactions, a hash of a previous block to have a neat Merkle tree, and random data to find checksums starting with enough zeros. This is so unnecessary when we have global warming and much better things to do with our energy budget.

Re: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

#7

Curious questions: Are we converting increase in thermodynamic entropy with decrease in information entropy (with some loss)? What if we use bitcoins mined by renewable resources (for e.g. Hydroelectric generator) to purchase carbon credits? What would the energy balance and economics look like?

Already this is happening in a roundabout way. Much of the bitcoin mining is unused hydroelectric in China, they are using the excess power that is basically free.

Re: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

#8
> "The plant used to only open at peak times in the summer and winter months; the new mining initiative means it now operates all year round."

This is actually pretty sad. This isn't power that would otherwise be wasted: they are emitting more pollution and greenhouse gasses in order to mine Bitcoins.

Bitcoin has created a perverse incentive to pollute here.

Re: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

#9

I think everyone involved in this project should be ashamed. Energy shouldn't be wasted into bruteforcing sha1 checksums of lists of transactions, a hash of a previous block to have a neat Merkle tree, and random data to find checksums starting with enough zeros. This is so unnecessary when we have global warming and much better things to do with our energy budget.

People have found bitcoin valuable to them. There are a million other things people spend money (energy) on that are just as wasteful if not more. Why not eliminate movie theaters, air conditioning, travel, sports? People should be free to do as they please and this is all enabled by energy.

Re: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

#10

I think everyone involved in this project should be ashamed. Energy shouldn't be wasted into bruteforcing sha1 checksums of lists of transactions, a hash of a previous block to have a neat Merkle tree, and random data to find checksums starting with enough zeros. This is so unnecessary when we have global warming and much better things to do with our energy budget.

People have found bitcoin valuable to them. There are a million other things people spend money (energy) on that are just as wasteful if not more. Why not eliminate movie theaters, air conditioning, travel, sports? People should be free to do as they please and this is all enabled by energy.

It's all about finding a balance. Some people think we should reduce our energy consumption but still maintain a good quality of life.

We could cut the energy consumption of bitcoin to zero and the quality of life of everyone would not change at all.

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