Bitcoin mining and energy consumption • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#21

Post by sova » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:21 PM UTC

moneytide1 wrote: post #5

The electricity consumption is a red flag, but perhaps it could be cheaper than the cost to build and maintain Guarda/Loomis trucks that carry physical currency, energy to melt metal to mint coins, and all the costs of building brick&mortar banks (even then, bankers provide auxiliary services like loans and advisement). We are all spending time talking about it as a collective effort to determine whether or not it sh…

You are right, the comparison is based on a faulty premise: the premise that current money minting doesn't consume energy.

You are very kind to point out that the pursuit of money is not an end-goal at all, and it would be great if a lot of these young bucks who made it big on bitcoin were investing their earnings into furthering the globe, instead of just living lavishly.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#22

Post by seanwilson » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

One of the big selling points of Bitcoin is that it's meant to be decentralised but it doesn't look like this plays out. Proof of work seems to inevitably lead to all the power going to parties that can afford specialised hardware who are in countries with low electricity costs.

Running a Bitcoin miner on commodity hardware now is pointless which seems to go against the spirit of Bitcoin when it started. Was this predicted at the inception of Bitcoin? It's interesting how economics impacts the security of the protocol like this.

Proof of stake is meant to consume less resources but then the power is then handed to people with the most money? Coming up with a way to have a decentralised currency where everyone involved gets a fair say without consuming too many resources is a super interesting problem.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#23

Post by albertgoeswoof » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

Bitcoin's electricity consumption is unfortunate, it's difficult to assess whether it is a waste or not. The current position blockchain tech can be compared to the state of networked computers in the 70s and early 80s. Not a huge amount of value delivered at the time, yet very few could have foreseen the impact of the internet and personal computing on the world.

If blockchains and distributed computing does present a new leap forward in how we communicate, this electricity will not be wasted.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#24

Post by lawlessone » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:25 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #20

moneytide1 wrote: post #5

The electricity consumption is a red flag, but perhaps it could be cheaper than the cost to build and maintain Guarda/Loomis trucks that carry physical currency, energy to melt metal to mint coins, and all the costs of building brick&mortar banks (even then, bankers provide auxiliary services like loans and advisement). We are all spending time talking about it as a collective effort to determine whether or not it sh…

These numbers are far beyond the energy required for trucks hauling cash. And they dont fully account for the truck-type energy to build and manage the bcoin mining industry.

There's also the creation of the cash, printing or melting. and the resource extraction for it.

The losses due to counterfeiting.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#25

Post by albertgoeswoof » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

sova wrote: post #21

moneytide1 wrote: post #5

The electricity consumption is a red flag, but perhaps it could be cheaper than the cost to build and maintain Guarda/Loomis trucks that carry physical currency, energy to melt metal to mint coins, and all the costs of building brick&mortar banks (even then, bankers provide auxiliary services like loans and advisement). We are all spending time talking about it as a collective effort to determine whether or not it sh…

You are right, the comparison is based on a faulty premise: the premise that current money minting doesn't consume energy. You are very kind to point out that the pursuit of money is not an end-goal at all, and it would be great if a lot of these young bucks who made it big on bitcoin were investing their earnings into furthering the globe, instead of just living lavishly.

A lot of the bitcoin wealth is going straight into ICOs, which do free up capital for innovation, in theory

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#26

Post by jackpeterfletch » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #20

moneytide1 wrote: post #5

The electricity consumption is a red flag, but perhaps it could be cheaper than the cost to build and maintain Guarda/Loomis trucks that carry physical currency, energy to melt metal to mint coins, and all the costs of building brick&mortar banks (even then, bankers provide auxiliary services like loans and advisement). We are all spending time talking about it as a collective effort to determine whether or not it sh…

These numbers are far beyond the energy required for trucks hauling cash. And they dont fully account for the truck-type energy to build and manage the bcoin mining industry.

We're starting to stop using cash anyway though right? Regardless of blockchain.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#27

Post by matt4077 » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

moneytide1 wrote: post #5

The electricity consumption is a red flag, but perhaps it could be cheaper than the cost to build and maintain Guarda/Loomis trucks that carry physical currency, energy to melt metal to mint coins, and all the costs of building brick&mortar banks (even then, bankers provide auxiliary services like loans and advisement). We are all spending time talking about it as a collective effort to determine whether or not it sh…

Every transaction consumes an average household's WEEKLY engird usages.

How's that not a simple concept?

> Buy, sit on it, cash out back to federal reserve notes. Profit.

If someone wins, someone else has to lose. And no, it's not the credit card companies. It's the last one holding the potato.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#28

Post by matt4077 » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:38 PM UTC

alborzmassah wrote: post #19

Is this not the price paid for the trust, security, and utility that bitcoin brings? I don’t hear alternatives being suggested.

How about not bitcoin, where a transaction doesn't consume 9 day's worth of an average family's energy budget?

Utility: a transaction costs $10, right? It's useless.

Security: Have you followed this? The actual recommendation is to print your private keys and stick them in a vault.

Trust: It's funny that, fundamentally, people started doubting the Federal Reserve when the gold standard was abolished, because suddenly "value of money is just fiction". Yet here they are, imbuing some far more ephemeral nothingness with the same sort of faith-based value.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#29

Post by zaphar » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:42 PM UTC

drinchev wrote: post #13

I don't get why journalists are not writing about the criminal side of Bitcoins. Lots of "users" ( not investors ) interested in Bitcoins are actually .onion sites or other shady / crime organisations. They actually don't care for human life and I doubt they will care for electricity consumption.

Honestly Bitcoin is probably an improvement for law enforcement. Cash is more anonymous. Bitcoin is completely public and traceable while in the network. And the moment you pull it out of the network you are connected to a real world entity.

Re: Bitcoin mining and energy consumption

#30

Post by falcolas » Fri, Dec 08, 2017, 1:43 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #17

joss82 wrote: post #7

From a quick research online, it seems that most mining pools are located in China [1] Roughly 2/3rd of electricity in China is produced from burning coal or gas, which, upon combustion, emit their own weight in CO2, basically. [2] From this two facts, one can conclude that Bitcoin has a pretty huge carbon footprint overall. This is not the impression that I got from reading that article. [1] https://bit-media.org/bi…

If I remember correctly, mining farms (and data centers in general) are usually colocated to an energy source, i.e. a plant. Some of those plants are not fully stretched, because there's almost no civilization nearby, so delivering to the next city comes with a huge loss in the energy network. So miners can get cheap energy from those plants - energy that would otherwise be unused or lost anyway. Not sure how much th…

Unused or lost power is instead never produced in the first place. Unless it’s hydro or wind (and even these are not producing at full power all the time). This argument is effectively bogus, unfortunately.