Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#231

Post by sharpneli » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

me551ah wrote: post #193

The most powerful supercomputer in the world reaches 143 petaflops, bitcoin network in comparison reaches 80704290.84 Petaflops. Granted that a majority of this computing power is in the form of custom ASIC's, but the figure is really staggering. And all of the 80704290.84 Petaflops, consume 73.12 TWh to repeatedly calculate SHA256 ! What could be the world's most powerful network does absolutely nothing but crunch h…

This is a bit of an iffy comparison.

The bitcoin network asics reach exactly 0 petaflops. Why? Because they cannot do any floating point operations. They can literally do just SHA256 hashes, nothing else.

The "worlds most powerful network" simply cannot do anything else than this. It's effectively just an expensive set of electrical heaters.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#232

Post by paulmd » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

zallarak wrote: post #181

Clarifications (this website perpetuates some common misconceptions): - A single bitcoin "transaction" can actually have thousands of inputs and thousands of outputs. So energy "per transaction" or "transactions per second" is not analogous to a typical monetary transaction. - Bitcoin does not compete with literal credit card transactions (although some use it like that today). I'd compare Bitcoin on-chain transactio…

Off-chain transactions effectively don't exist at all in terms of transaction volume, and the players who staked money on Lightning lost approximately 99.97% of that money.

https://cryptobriefing.com/ln-nodes-lightning-network/

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#233

Post by xg15 » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

btcd wrote: post #223

puranjay wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know what problem Bitcoin is solving anymore. I haven't seen a single website accepting Bitcoin as a payment in the last whole year.

Bitcoin's main function is store of value, with the additional benefit of being relatively easy to transfer. It is basically a more convenient form a gold. After all these years of growth, Bitcoin's market cap becomes its own unique edge. One simply cannot transfer significant amount, say tens of millions of dollars, easily in any other crypto currency. The cost of energy is minuscule compared to alternative means of…

So the purpose of Bitcoin is to give billionaires better tools to move their wealth around while externalising the energy consumption and CO2 omissions to all of us. Thanks a lot!

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#234

Post by paulmd » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:00 AM UTC

iopq wrote: post #77

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At current difficulty rates, what is the profitability formula for cost of electricity versus hashrate? example: if you aren't getting X Mh/s @ $Y kw/h, it isn't profitable?

Depends on the hardware, mining difficulty, block reward. Right now? Something like 0.15 per kw/h is the break-even point, and if you're not getting below 0.10 you won't get the cost of your hardware back fast enough In other words, you should mine if you're in China where you can get those rates

to add: china often pays zero, because they're bribing local officials to ignore their bitcoin farms

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#235

Post by btcd » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:00 AM UTC

Although interesting in its own right, Bitcoin's energy consumption is in no way a good basis on which to judge its social value.

Bitcoin is fundamentally an asset. A useful analogy is to think of it as gold. Gold can be used to make payments, but it is not convenient. Same goes for Bitcoin. But they are both useful as a robust way of storing value.

Maintaining the Bitcoin network costs energy, but almost nothing else. Given Bitcoin's price history, it's safe to assume that Bitcoin's total energy cost is a tiny fraction of its current market cap of around $150b. Now compare that to the social costs of protecting gold, which probably has an over $7 trillion market cap. Wars were fought and lives lost for its ownership.

In conclusion: a large and liquid crypto asset like Bitcoin provides a much more advanced solution of value storage and transfer than traditional physical assets. Its net social benefits should be orders of magnitudes higher than its energy expenditure.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#236

Post by paulmd » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:03 AM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #213

the_gastropod wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt that. You have a source?

The financial sector is 20% of global GDP. Bitcoin is much less than 20% of world carbon emissions. Further, fiduciary duty of corporations to maximize shareholder profit has led to almost every environmentally harmful exploit of externalities. I'd argue that the stock market is fundamentally responsible for 99% of all pollution.

Financial sector does not produce 20% of carbon emissions. They are maybe 0.1%. The act of trading on exchanges is significantly more efficient than the act of trading on blockchain. Because there really is no need for an untrusted ledger when there is the USG certifying that the NYSE and NASDAQ will not execute erroneous trades.

Bitcoin does not eliminate the idea of fiduciary duty. Bitcoin holders still expect bitcoin loanees to trade and operate in their financial interest.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#237

Post by konschubert » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:06 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #158

lukev wrote: post #132

The energy consumption of Bitcoin isn't new news. What continues to disappoint me, however, is how many people immediately jump to its defense with arguments based on the value it provides, as if that offset its cost. What gets neglected is that the Bitcoin algorithm is inherently wasteful . By its very design, it results in an insane amount of duplicated, pointless computation. The question isn't whether something l…

>trust-based models (like Stellar) What you're describing is basically Libra with slightly better entities backing it. Transactions can be reversed by those "trusted entities" with no recourse by you and at no cost to them. At least with PoW and PoS (to an extent), attempting to reverse transactions has a cost. Speaking of PoS, were the issues with PoS ever solved? Specifically the "nothing at stake" problem. The Wik…

That’s not true. YOU can create your own node and decide who YOU trust.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#238

Post by btcd » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #233

btcd wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's main function is store of value, with the additional benefit of being relatively easy to transfer. It is basically a more convenient form a gold. After all these years of growth, Bitcoin's market cap becomes its own unique edge. One simply cannot transfer significant amount, say tens of millions of dollars, easily in any other crypto currency. The cost of energy is minuscule compared to alternative means of…

So the purpose of Bitcoin is to give billionaires better tools to move their wealth around while externalising the energy consumption and CO2 omissions to all of us. Thanks a lot!

That is a side effect, not the purpose. Millionaires can use Bitcoins to move their wealth too. I'd say even for a transaction of $1,000, it is often cheaper to move in Bitcoins.

On the contrary: the purpose of private banks is almost exclusively for billionaires to move their wealth around, while externalising costs to all of us. Many financial market interventions in the past are the society bailing out billionaires who bet irresponsibly and cannot bear reducing themselves to millionaires.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#239

Post by xg15 » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:08 AM UTC

zallarak wrote: post #181

Clarifications (this website perpetuates some common misconceptions): - A single bitcoin "transaction" can actually have thousands of inputs and thousands of outputs. So energy "per transaction" or "transactions per second" is not analogous to a typical monetary transaction. - Bitcoin does not compete with literal credit card transactions (although some use it like that today). I'd compare Bitcoin on-chain transactio…

> Bitcoin does not compete with literal credit card transactions (although some use it like that today). ... So compared to shipping and securing gold, Bitcoin is quite cheap!

I haven't heard the tagline "Bitcoin - it's cheaper than moving around gold on warships" yet. So far, Bitcoin has always been advertised as a new form of internet payment and a new decentralised currently for everyday use.

It's also the very point of cryptocurrencies that there are no intermediate agents, like central banks that could make up the lower levels of your stack.

So the usage patterns that Bitcoin was marketed with absolutely put it in competition with visa transactions.

Re: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

#240

Post by konschubert » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 7:08 AM UTC

lukev wrote: post #132

The energy consumption of Bitcoin isn't new news. What continues to disappoint me, however, is how many people immediately jump to its defense with arguments based on the value it provides, as if that offset its cost. What gets neglected is that the Bitcoin algorithm is inherently wasteful . By its very design, it results in an insane amount of duplicated, pointless computation. The question isn't whether something l…

I think bitcoin won’t be able to compete long term because one way or another, it’s users have to pay for the tremendous energy expense.

I hope we recognize this rather sooner than later, such that we can stop wasting so much energy.