imagine the thermodynamic losses.
We are going to be able to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere more by afforestation (terrestrial and marine) than by covering the planet in solar panels and turbines.
Bitcoin as a Battery
131–140 of 319 posts
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an excellent take on why the Grossman's idea is plainly idiotic [0]. You don't get more bitcoin for more electricity, you just get more security. The system itself can reach a state when you need 51% of whole planet electricity and computation devices locked into it to be perfectly secure. Thats frankly scary. [0] https://elad-verbin.medium.com/bitcoin-is-not-a-battery-it-i...
> You don't get more bitcoin for more electricity, you just get more security. Specifically, more security for the next block, only. Once that block is mined, the process starts all over again for the next block. The energy usage reset button is pressed as soon as each block is mined. No energy is "stored".
Bitcoin itself is energy or can be converted into energy. If I can buy wood to burn for energy with Bitcoin, I am converting mined Bitcoin into energy.
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#133This seems like a pretty flawed idea and an attempt to justify the incredible amount of electricity required by bitcoin. If bitcoin was changed to require a fraction the amount of electricity all of these ideas would suddenly fall apart. Building renewable energy sources in the middle of nowhere to power a bitcoin farm is just completely nonsensical and does noting to help with the shift to renewables.
This is an excellent take on why the Grossman's idea is plainly idiotic [0]. You don't get more bitcoin for more electricity, you just get more security. The system itself can reach a state when you need 51% of whole planet electricity and computation devices locked into it to be perfectly secure. Thats frankly scary. [0] https://elad-verbin.medium.com/bitcoin-is-not-a-battery-it-i...
Idiotic all the way. If aluminum can be perceived as a battery, then everything else can be. "Poop as a Battery (PaaB)" (am I the first to use this?)(no I won't DDG it).
In that sense, Bill Gatess "Reinvented Toilet" does kinda the same. People pee and poop, sewage is processed and is converted to clean water and can produce energy [0]. Thus PaaB(!?)
[0]: https://www.elitereaders.com/waterless-toilet-system-generat...
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can be utilized for heating human occupied spaces. Humans need a lot of heating.
Then the argument of "we will just stick the miners in Iceland where renewable energy is cheap" falls apart. If you want to mine where humans are then you need to mine with grid electricity.
That'a very good point. Crypto heat use will be limited to windy cold places where some people live.
Unless there are some industrial processes that might use this mild heat. Maybe poultry production? Some green houses in cold climates?
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with analogizing Bitcoin mining to gold mining is that Bitcoin mining secures value in the past and gold mining secures value in the future. If you stopped mining Bitcoin, all previously mined Bitcoin would lose value due to the decreased security of the block chain. It's like if gold began to sink into the ground the moment you stopped mining it, and you had to keep mining and smelting it at a ever-more…
More like potatoes than gold, then.
You can still eat a potato though.
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin mining is good for the environment https://pomp.substack.com/p/bitcoin-mining-is-good-for-the-e...
The post is making the free-market argument: > In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Bitcoin is actually one of the greatest financial incentives to transition the world to clean energy. without bothering to explain why any one point they highlight would beget any one outcome claimed by the post. In fact, there are some backwards incentives that are missed. An example would be their claim with regards…
Kinda funny as we know the free-market eventually will switch to a non-PoW solution. There is no way around it.
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You don't get more bitcoin for more electricity, you just get more security. Specifically, more security for the next block, only. Once that block is mined, the process starts all over again for the next block. The energy usage reset button is pressed as soon as each block is mined. No energy is "stored".
Bitcoin itself is energy or can be converted into energy. If I can buy wood to burn for energy with Bitcoin, I am converting mined Bitcoin into energy.
If I have Bitcoin how do I convert it into energy to power something else?
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin’s price is backed by the sunk cost of energy used to mine it. If any critical mass of miners began using cheap or free renewable energy, the price of BTC would fall precipitously. Miners have, in the past, resisted improvements to the network that would reduce their profits so this all seems pretty unlikely as well.
This is false. Bitcoin’s value is “backed” by the expectation that it will be valuable tomorrow — nothing more. It’s the same with gold. Gold’s value has nothing to do with the cost of mining it out of the ground. Rather the cost of mining it is justified on the basis of its expected value.
Its price certainly can appreciate for many reasons but that’s not my point. The price of BTC price is backstopped by the sunk cost of mining. Every time the price has fallen below the cost of production miners deactivate and the price stabilizes. If a miner’s opex goes to zero (due to cheap or free renewable energy) in the future there will be no incentive to stop mining during a crash and prices will go to $0.
Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about training ML models as another example? It requires a lot of energy as well (and I expect it to be more significant in the future), and the optimal power draw should depend on the price of energy. Of course it requires GPU/TPU pricing to change depending on clock speed, which is hard to sell to customers. So yeah, for now Bitcoin mining is a more scalable solution.
Sure. That's also great if you can monetize trained ML models so easily that everyone can participate. It's already being done to some very small degree by few companies that locate their ML server farms in places where energy is cheap and renewable. I hope this application will some day compete with crypto for computing power and energy and win but I don't think it will be popularized and commoditized soon enough to…
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Re: Bitcoin as a Battery
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
If bitcoin would be fully powered by renewables, do you still think its energy consumption would be a problem?
Yes, because those renewables could be powering people's homes and productive equipment, or powering conventional payment systems with plenty capacity left over. It's not necessarily a deal-breaker, but plenty of crypto exists that doesn't need this much power.
Energy for the home and nearly every other electricity demanding enterprise easily outbids bitcoin miners. There’s a reason they have to go the there ridiculously remote places to set up operations.