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Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

bbc.co.uk

21–30 of 109 posts

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#21
post #12

"Proof of stake" to establish distributed consensus will solve the energy problem related to cryptocurrency. Ethereum is one example of such cryptocurrency that uses this mechanism.

Ethereum still does not use PoS and relies on PoW just like Bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#22
post #17
post #12

"Proof of stake" to establish distributed consensus will solve the energy problem related to cryptocurrency. Ethereum is one example of such cryptocurrency that uses this mechanism.

Ethereum doesn’t use PoS. They’ve been promising it since 2014, but the network is still on PoW.

Beacon chain is on PoS now. They’re doing a very very controlled migration from the legacy chain over to the new PoS ones for obvious reasons (change management, testing, comms) but the tech is in prod and ready to go

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#24
post #2

""If Bitcoin were to be adopted as a global reserve currency," he speculates, "the Bitcoin price will probably be in the millions, and those miners will have more money than the entire [US] Federal budget to spend on electricity." "We'd have to double our global energy production," he says with a laugh. "For Bitcoin." He says it also limits the number of transactions the system can process to about five per second. T…

People just want an asset that can't be manipulated away. If it takes tons of energy, or if it totally changes power dynamics, or if we need to transact in different ways, then so be it. No one is going to give up the opportunity to own something like this for any reason. Regardless of whether people like it or not, they will have to adapt, since there is probably no viable way to stop something like this when people…

Countries could make it illegal to own due to its energy consumption

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#25
post #12

"Proof of stake" to establish distributed consensus will solve the energy problem related to cryptocurrency. Ethereum is one example of such cryptocurrency that uses this mechanism.

Ethereum does not use Proof of Stake, it is a proposed change that is being worked on, with a timeline of several years before it will be put into action, and that's only if the network accepts it.

It's actually up and running for a while, with large sums already staked, and the flipping of the switch on mainnet will very likely happen before end of summer. https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/staking/

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#27
post #12

"Proof of stake" to establish distributed consensus will solve the energy problem related to cryptocurrency. Ethereum is one example of such cryptocurrency that uses this mechanism.

That is planning to use.. The transition has not taken place yet and is not expected before November 2021.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#28
Assuming those numbers are correct. It's pretty amazing that it only took 10 years for the money subsidy to be a threat to the world.

I don't see how it'll pop the bubble, but imo the day where there's a moral imperative to switch to a PoS chain is coming. I wonder if the btc community could switch to PoS if they seriously were looking at losing Bitcoin dominance

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#29
post #9

Luckily there is a whole new generation of PoS networks that don't rely on proof of work. Some even automatically buy carbon offset credits to maintain a carbon neural footprint.

AFAIK, PoS networks have not been proven as secure as PoW. Would love to see someone smarter than me commenting on this.

Re: Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble

#30
There is no other comparable way to convert power so directly into money like Bitcoin and proof-of-work networks provide.

This means that Bitcoin mining and energy prices form an arbitrate opportunity, which will force energy prices higher and higher as usage increases.

A friend of mine proposed that proof-of-work could be the Great Filter.

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