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Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

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Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#21

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

nanidin wrote: post #17

The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is actually an overestimate. The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of the rest of the thread.

Are you saying "has a Bitcoin wallet" = "own bitcoin"?

Only ~60M households (50%) have an investment account. I'm skeptical that there's a huge portion of households with bitcoin but w/o a traditional investment account. I'm also skeptical that ~80% of people with investment accounts have Bitcoin. Almost everyone I work with and most of my friends and family have an investment account. I only know a couple of people who currently have any Bitcoin. I know a lot of people that at one point owned Bitcoin, though.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#22

Post by wyager »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13
wyager wrote: post #12

Good. I want to incentivize the progression of humanity to a kardashev type 1 civilization and beyond.

Even if that's your goal, wasting electricity on Bitcoin might not be the optimal route to getting there...

It’s probably pretty close to optimal. Leaving aside the mischaracterizarion of “waste” (that’s been covered plenty of times), Bitcoin is economically unique in that it provides a guaranteed price floor on power consumption, allowing us to overcome the “bathtub curve”, distribution costs, and other problems associated with novel green energy sources.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#23

Post by nanidin »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #21
nanidin wrote: post #17

The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is actually an overestimate. The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of the rest of the thread.

Are you saying "has a Bitcoin wallet" = "own bitcoin"? Only ~60M households (50%) have an investment account. I'm skeptical that there's a huge portion of households with bitcoin but w/o a traditional investment account. I'm also skeptical that ~80% of people with investment accounts have Bitcoin. Almost everyone I work with and most of my friends and family have an investment account. I only know a couple of people…

I'm not saying either way (as this wasn't specified in the tweet either) - just pointing out the huge discrepancy between easily accessible statistics and the story the author of the tweet is trying to tell. There is a huge assumption being made (10 million people hold bitcoin) and zero justification for that assumption.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#24

Post by wyager »

dougmwne wrote: post #15
wyager wrote: post #12

Good. I want to incentivize the progression of humanity to a kardashev type 1 civilization and beyond.

It would be a neat trick to let Bitcoin energy consumption grow till it was more than half of global energy consumption while ramping up carbon taxes, then regulate it into oblivion overnight. Boom, instant massive energy surplus!

Bitcoin is one of the few energy sinks where carbon-producing power sources are not economically optimal. Because Bitcoin facilities have constant 24/7 demand at a pretty stable price floor, it actually makes sense to use energy sources like geothermal and nuclear for Bitcoin where it wouldn’t make much sense for industrial or residential generation.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#25

Post by kevinh »

nanidin wrote: post #17

The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is actually an overestimate. The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of the rest of the thread.

The first result is a survey done by a firm dedicated to Bitcoin that only surveyed people making $50k or higher. It's possible that 46m number is correct, but I wouldn't make the assumption that it's anywhere close to accurate.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#26

Post by SahAssar »

nanidin wrote: post #17

The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is actually an overestimate. The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of the rest of the thread.

Do you think that between a third and half of US households have people holding significant amounts of bitcoin?

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#27

Post by Uehreka »

Right now very few people are actually using Bitcoin for everyday transactions, and yet still the carbon footprint rivals many large countries. If this became the world’s primary currency (as many crypto fans seem to want) it would increase our total carbon footprint by multiple orders of magnitude.

I do not see many people in the crypto community approaching this with the deadly seriousness it deserves. Most conversations seem to devolve into:

- wishcasting about how energy is produced: “There are a whole bunch of miners in South America running on hydro!” This ignores that we are decades away at least from a solarpunk world where energy isn’t a zero-sum game, the hydro energy being used by miners just means the people in nearby cities have to resort to fossil fuels.

- wishcasting about Proof-of-Stake: “We could just switch to this and the carbon problems go away!” I admit it would be great if this happened, but No large coins use it, and I’ll believe Ethereum when I see it. Proof-of-Stake also has downsides that some crypto people won’t accept, so by their own admission it’s not credibly considered an option (certainly not for Bitcoin).

- wishcasting about carbon offsets: “We can buy our way out!” The recent California wildfires have burned through a lot of the trees planted as “carbon offsets”, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. Offsets were a neat idea, but they don’t seem to have panned out well, and I have yet to hear a credible case that carbon capture can ramp up fast enough to match crypto’s growing carbon footprint.

- whataboutism: “You ride planes don’t you? Those have huge carbon footprints!” I have yet to hear a compelling argument that a Planes+Bitcoin world would have a smaller carbon footprint than the current Planes+Mastercard world. And no one is talking about Bitcoin making planes go away.

I’d love to hear a clear and credulous case for how we get out of this problem, but I have yet to hear one from the crypto community. If the crypto community won’t take this seriously and propose real solutions, people from outside the crypto community will come up with solutions that will involve banning crypto.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#28

Post by qeternity »

nanidin wrote: post #17

The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is actually an overestimate. The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of the rest of the thread.

Wow. Ok, where to start.

For one, this is why reading articles and doing your own research (DYOR) is so important. That headline, which is attributed to NYDIG, a crypto proprietor, isn’t actually sourced anywhere else. Gemini, the Winklevii crypto exchange, places the number substantially lower.

Given that Coinbase has had a maximum of 8.8 million monthly active users, which is going to put us within spitting distance of the true number, suggests the true figure is much much lower.

Additionally, speculating on bitcoin’s price on an exchange does not mean you’re utilizing the network (hell, you don’t even need actual bitcoin to do this, futures will do). But this is what the overwhelming majority of people do with bitcoin.

So the real question is how many people use the bitcoin network to transfer bitcoins. This is what POW enables. Do I believe that 10m are sending bitcoin to each other? No fucking way. Much much lower.

So yeah, 10m seems conservative even if the assumption is poorly worded (network users vs coin holders).

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#29

Post by nanidin »

kevinh wrote: post #25
nanidin wrote: post #17

The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is actually an overestimate. The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of the rest of the thread.

The first result is a survey done by a firm dedicated to Bitcoin that only surveyed people making $50k or higher. It's possible that 46m number is correct, but I wouldn't make the assumption that it's anywhere close to accurate.

Agreed! Also consider that the first result is only meant to represent bitcoin owners in a country that makes up 4.6% of the world population.

Re: Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita

#30

Post by eikenberry »

j_walter wrote: post #14
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious too. Quick Googling shows this breakdown of energy usage by sector and source: https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energibruk/energibruken... The Tweet is specifically about electricity (kWh). It appears Norway uses mostly electricity in applications where other countries might use more natural gas (heating). This is likely because Norway has plentiful clean hydroelectric electricity, so they export th…

Is there a way to differentiate clean hydro and dirty hydro? In the US the most recent "green" standards exclude hydroelectricity as renewable energy.

Really? That seems dumb. Have any references for why they made this decision?
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