Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#51

Post by gruez » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

verdverm wrote: post #33

SamPatt wrote: post #20

Another anti-Bitcoin article focusing on energy consumption, how original. HN has discussed this to death.

Maybe society is tuning in to the problem more. My parents mentioned it. If they are going to ban ICE vehicles, crypto mining is worth considering for the same fate, especially when energy efficient alternatives exist

The equivalent to banning bitcoin mining would be banning personal vehicles, or banning pickup trucks/SUVs. Banning ICE vehicles would be closer to banning the use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#52

Post by donovanian » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #30

SamPatt wrote: post #20

Another anti-Bitcoin article focusing on energy consumption, how original. HN has discussed this to death.

It’s still a problem. And getting worse.

There's a certain type of person that applies this exact phrase to everything they ideologically oppose.

They're joyless and authoritarian.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#53

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

dvh1990 wrote: post #25

Bitcoin is a good thing. It's a simple financial system with very few rules that can serve as an anti-fragile backbone for much bigger systems on top of it. Instead of looking for ways to curtail it (because that ALWAYS works, right?) we should be looking for cleaner ways to power it like renewables and nuclear.

and focus on internalizing carbon cost into energy prices, and that will help focus on lightning network for micro-transactions.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#54

Post by inshadows » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

rspeele wrote: post #45

inshadows wrote: post #8

Bitcoin does not consume energy. Miners do. Before presenting your views on Bitcoin, you should have some knowledge about how the network works, in particular how mining difficulty is regulated. Bitcoin would do just fine if its energy consumption dropped to 2008 levels.

Um, if it was at 2008 levels, wouldn't somebody do a 51% attack?

Then it wouldn't be at 2008 levels anymore. The problem is that miners have so much power today.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#55

Post by creato » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

rspeele wrote: post #35

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #6

How much energy do the following consume in total: - mining metal for coins of fiat currency - mining gold because people don't trust fiat (digging otherwise useless-in-that-quantity rocks out of the earth, a Proof of... hmm... WORK?) - running stock exchanges because people don't trust gold either (tungsten has almost the same density) - smelting the plain metal and gold - the US military which backs the dollar, and…

And don't forget: - space exploration - streaming videos - grocery stores - cars - shipping containers full of fidget spinners - building and maintaining zoos - giant casinos in Las Vegas - hospitals And all the other things associated with the so-called "green" USD ecosystem.

Are you saying grocery stores, cars, and hospitals only exist because of the "USD ecosystem", and would not exist if Bitcoin were dominant?

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#56

Post by uncletammy » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

kelp wrote: post #2

Proof of work blockchains should be banned by various governments for this reason alone. At this point BTC is a speculative bubble that benefits a very small group to the detriment of the rest of us. I also have a lot of personal frustration with how mining (more of ETH and others) is impacting the global GPU supply. A whole cottage industry has cropped up of sites, discords, etc that provide notifications when GPUs…

> Proof of work blockchains should be banned by various governments for this reason alone.

How does one ban a blockchain? Serious question.

Would you only arrest the miners or would you also arrest non-mining full node operators?

How could you tell if regular citizens were transacting with POW coins? Would you subpoena telecom companies for records where customers have visited known sites which transact in POW coins? Or would you go the AT&T route and pipe telecom traffic through a little cabinet that uses deep packet inspection to sniff out POW transactions occurring over RPC?

What about traders? Would you outlaw trading POW coins and make exchange exclude US customers? That could make for some serious arbitrage opportunities for tech savy citizens.

I would genuinely appreciate your answer to any or all of these questions.

I build cryptocurrency software and would gain a lot from additional insight into the threat model I face in the not-so-distant future.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#57

Post by doggosphere » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

hudon wrote: post #15

627467 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can list so many dumb uses of energy out of my head that could be beneficial if banned...

VISA alone processes over 60,000 transactions per second [0] and only uses a tiny subset of the world's data centers. Bitcoin processes a whooping 7 transactions per second and consumes as much energy as *all data centers globally*. I'm curious to hear what dumb use of energy you have in your head that rivals this level of stupidity. edit: I'll address the "apple to oranges" replies here: you can combine the energy c…

Is VISA an asset that protects against hyperinflation, is it permissionless to participate in, is it censorship resistant, is it pseudonymous?

You're comparing your bicycle to a cargo ship saying "see how much more energy efficient my bicycle is?". Meanwhile your bicycle can't tow 1000 tonnes of freight across the ocean. That's why is moot to compare them.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#58

Post by asinoastuto » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

dvh1990 wrote: post #25

Bitcoin is a good thing. It's a simple financial system with very few rules that can serve as an anti-fragile backbone for much bigger systems on top of it. Instead of looking for ways to curtail it (because that ALWAYS works, right?) we should be looking for cleaner ways to power it like renewables and nuclear.

blockchain is a good thing. bitcoin is just a early adopter that refuses to go away because people keep pumping it up for one reason or another. there are many better alternatives to bitcoin that solve all the issues people here on HN complain about, but all you will read is people calling others "non-coiners", as if thats the reason anyone is against bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#59

Post by verdverm » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

dvh1990 wrote: post #37

kelp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of datacenters provide substantial utility to others. Like the customers of the services that are hosted in those datacenters. BTC mining makes the miners more wealthy. In service of the BTC network, which has what utility? There are quite a number of criminal or at least grey market uses for BTC. But what are the legitimate uses that are not as well or better served by the traditional payment networks?

Bitcoin's true use case hasn't showed itself yet because it is uniquely suited to help us in case of a select few low probability and extreme scenarios, aka black swan events which we can't predict, but will probably happen.

If those events happen, do you think the infra (electricity generation and telecom interconnection) that it relies upon will still be around?

Re: Bitcoin may consume as much energy as all data centers globally

#60

Post by ziml77 » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

kelp wrote: post #12

viklove wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say we should ban data centers instead. They're clearly a scam and no one should be allowed to use them because they waste so much power!

A lot of datacenters provide substantial utility to others. Like the customers of the services that are hosted in those datacenters. BTC mining makes the miners more wealthy. In service of the BTC network, which has what utility? There are quite a number of criminal or at least grey market uses for BTC. But what are the legitimate uses that are not as well or better served by the traditional payment networks?

It's less a question of if Bitcoin has utility and more about the proportionality of its utility to resource usage. The problem is that there's always incentives to increase the amount of processing power being thrown at Bitcoin but the utility of Bitcoin is independent of that. You can change the amount of processing power in the network without affecting the rate of transaction processing, rate of minting, or the perceived value of Bitcoin.