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Bitcoin as a Battery

nickgrossman.xyz

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Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#141

Post by noxer »

imtringued wrote: post #63
speedgoose wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to use electricity to heat human occupied spaces, you should use a heatpump which has much better efficiency, above 100%.

Cooling technologies just move the heat around. A datacenter produces a lot of heat that is then subsequently moved out of the building. Capturing that heat shouldn't be too difficult because it passes through central AC or central chillers.

Capturing as in storing? Simply knowing where the heat is/goes doesn't really make it easy usable. You can heat up water for example but what if no one need warm water there? Also often additional energy is useless just to move the heat away fast enough.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#142

Post by doomroot »

eganist wrote: post #46
delaaxe wrote: post #35

Earlier 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…

> what's to stop producers from diverting existing gas production towards mining right now.

Because it makes 0 financial sense to do so. The market demand for gas waaaayy out competes bitcoins demand for gas.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#143

Post by audunw »

What the hell is is with cryptocurrency proponents and trying to redefine words to suit their narrative? First Bitcoin was NOT fiat currency (despite being one of the most fiat currencies by definition), then it was also a store of value (despite it being a horrible store of value, a high-risk high-reward investment is more accurate). Now it's supposed to be a battery? When the energy being put into it is basically pure waste?

There is no way to make aluminum other than putting huge amounts of energy. Aluminum has value to everyone in some way, not just those invested in it. There are plenty of ways to do digital transactions, or even to do proof-of-work cryptocurrency (if you feel that's necessary), besides using Bitcoin. With aluminum you can even reverse the process and use it as an actual battery. With Bitcoin you can't. The energy is burned forever.

I really do think cryptocurrency and block-chain technology is cool. But the level of hype and double-think is getting insane.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#144

Post by UncleMeat »

scotty79 wrote: post #134
UncleMeat wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The point is that there isn't enough renewable energy for population centers right now. So every clean watt used for mining btc takes that clean watt away from somebody else. This is why reducing energy use is so powerful. Even if X% of your energy use comes from zero-emissions sources, all marginal energy use comes from carbon.

The only way that btc mining can truly claim to have no impact on global emissions is if it uses zero-emission energy that otherwise couldn't be used in some other productive way. And that, almost by definition, limits the use of the waste heat.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#145

Post by purple_ferret »

Dzugaru wrote: post #105
PeterBarrett wrote: post #17

This 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...

Yes, to me this response seems intuitive if you know anything about bitcoin and PoW blockchains. The original article seems based on misconceptions.

I find it strange that even people at a prominent firm like Union Square Ventures are perpetuating such misconceptions.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#146

Post by andagainagain »

So... to break down the idea, it starts with redefining energy, then leans on that definition to justify making more bitcoin.

What this means has nothing to do with energy, and everything to do with cost savings on bitcoin mining by intentionally increasing electricity load on a system based on electricity variation of renewables.

You can do that IF your goal is to get more bitcoin. But you're not storing energy by doing so. Electrically speaking, you are only a cost on the system.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#147

Post by specialist »

megameter wrote: post #126
specialist wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My metaphor: Just like governments mint currency from bullion, miners mint bitcoin from electricity. While I think it's weird to consume so much energy to create something so ephemeral, I'm still unclear about the externalities, eg negative ecological impact, driving electricity prices up. Is all this effort worthwhile? Maybe? It feels like a tulip bulb craze, south sea bubble. But I've been so wrong so many times, I…

I think there are two angles on Bitcoin that make some sense: 1. The true believers like labor theory of property a lot, and see having a mining rig as an extension of that(falliciously or no - there are plenty of critiques of labor theory of property itself). A bitcoin represents the "same amount" of effort relative to its value at a given moment in time. 2. As a lower margin use of energy premised on maintaining co…

Nice. Will now read about "no rentiers". I'm curious about the consensus use cases.

Most of my interest is around authenticity. Provenance, verifiability, identity, and so forth.

Ian Goodfellow articulated my own hunches, beliefs about this: Detecting fraud, fakes, lies is a non-starter. Authenticity has to be out of band. So sign your works, and then record it on some trusted blockchain.

Ian Goodfellow: Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) | Lex Fridman Podcast #19 [2019] https://youtu.be/Z6rxFNMGdn0?t=3329

Goodfellow is the first person I've read (or heard) that espouses this pretty basic, obvious position. There's apparently still a giant cohort who utterly reject authenticity. Even as opt-in. Because something something Freedom Speeches™.

I intend to learn about the consensus stuff. Like you seem to already grok. That's clearly a necessary enabler for authenticity use cases.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#149

Post by hackernudes »

Nursie wrote: post #80
adav wrote: post #26

Cheap energy into aluminium results in useful material to build things with. Cheap energy into bitcoin results in some more bitcoins of questionable use?

It doesn’t even result in more bitcoins. The emission rate is fixed.

But miners are competing for bigger slices of the pie. So more energy does mean more bitcoin (for a specific miner).

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#150

Post by danboarder »

bathtub365 wrote: post #137
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

By purchasing electricity with Bitcoin.
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