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Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

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Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#51

Post by hunter-gatherer »

shtps wrote: post #37
pcdoodle wrote: post #13

Apple is doing the same thing along with everyone else. Go look at an e-waste facility, It will be less than 0.001% of total e-waste.

This is an interesting point and made me wonder what percentage does bitcoin contribute annually according to the numbers in the linked paper. Bitcoins annual estimated e-waste: 307 000 metric tons Global annual estimated e-waste: 53 600 000 metric tons 307 000 / 53 600 000 * 100 = 0.57 % I don't know if the numbers in the linked paper and the following paper can be used together as I haven't read both, but I've take…

It would be interesting to have a comparison of e-waste by utility. I imagine this would be impossible without the help of all the consumer electronic producers though. Even then, they might not have the data to tell what you are using your personal electronics for.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#52

Post by jbu »

me_me_me wrote: post #38
simonw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think that AirPods are a larger cause of e-waste than dedicated Bitcoin mining equipment? Or are you comparing dedicate mining equipment to all consumer technology combined?

Of course. The example wasnt about AirPods but the whole catalogue of consumer electronics bought every year, for sole reason of owning newer version as a social status. Iphones pods pads etc etc.

I get value from using my AirPods while they last. They make my life better. Cryptocurrencies? Great if you got in at the top of the ponzi, but otherwise not.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#53

Post by tiluha »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #25

One bullet point says: "On average Bitcoin generates 272 g of e-waste per transaction processed on the blockchain." So transactions on exchanges are less wasteful? A deposit from wallet to exchange generates the same pollution? Or is it "only" mined transactions? Does the transaction size matter?

Transactions do not matter at all. The energy is used to mine blocks. The same energy is used whether the blocks contain transactions or are empty

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#54

Post by moritonal »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #39
moritonal wrote: post #12

I'm starting to get irate now with the hypocrisy of some who talk about how the Government need to be more green, but then follow up with "oh my bitcoin worth's gone through the roof!"

I'm starting to grow irate with the weekly "bitcoin is killing the enivornment" HN FUD threads from people that use AWS.

Surely having the bio "Crypto enthusiast and developer." means you're aware of your conflict of interest?

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#55

Post by cryptica »

Bitcoin's popularity in spite of its extreme inefficiency is a testament to the incredible power of network effects in our current economic system. It seems that Bitcoin's price will not stop growing until the monetary system is replaced by Bitcoin. The monetary system appears to be funding its own demise in an unstoppable, predictable, systematic way.

It seems that Karl Marx was right when he said that "Unbridled Capitalism Will Destroy itself." - It has already destroyed itself in the eyes of a large number of people.

But clearly communism isn't the solution since it also ended up destroying itself on many occasions.

Maybe the solution is bridled (constrained) capitalism? It's interesting to think back to the gold standard and how gold acted as a constraint on capitalism. Maybe what we really need now are constraints; Bitcoin and other deflationary cryptocurrencies can provide this.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#56

Post by Fnoord »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #19

Completely pales next to something as egregious as disposable tech that sells in the millions and only has a lifespan of 2 years tops like AirPods. They will still be washing up on beaches 100 years after every single person involved in their design has passed. Whole electronics industry needs to take this stuff more seriously, we need more replaceable batteries and storage, right to repair on a global level and laws…

Classic whataboutism which also lacks data regarding the comparison. Airpods are an actual physical product. Bitcoin is nothing more than air, speculation.

That said, I prefer a smartphone I can open and replace the battery of. I own one, too: Fairphone 3. I'll look forward to the day wireless earpods have replaceable battery. However, we still gotta think about updating the firmware of the chipset.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#57

Post by tiluha »

zsmi wrote: post #40
JonathanBeuys wrote: post #24

Is the hardware still working when it is discarded? If it is only discarded because there is new hardware with a better calculations/energy ratio then it would be better to use a new POW algorithm, which does not benefit from single purpose ASICs. Or are processors and memory broken beyond repair when they have been running at max speed for a few years?

For dedicated ASICs: It's still working, but the hardware can only perform the SHA-256 hash algorithm crazy fast, that's it. > it would be better to use a new POW algorithm, which does not benefit from single purpose ASICs. It's hard for me to imagine what that would be but that could be a lack of imagination on my part. Maybe other non-payment blockchain applications? The other day some friends and I were musing how…

Monero uses RandomX as its hash algorithm, which is based on random code excecution and optimised for CPUs. https://github.com/tevador/RandomX

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#58

Post by lottin »

mcjshciejebcu wrote: post #35

Whenever I read anything about how resource intensive the bitcoin network is, I wonder how it compares to the total energy and other resource use of traditional finance. Those costs have got to be pretty high for traditional finance, especially considering minting and transportation of physical money and considering the innumerable humans needed to run it. However, I've never seen a serious estimate of those numbers,…

Resource intensity refers to resource use per unit of output [1] not resource use in absolute terms, which is a meaningless statistic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#59

Post by newsclues »

me_me_me wrote: post #38
simonw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think that AirPods are a larger cause of e-waste than dedicated Bitcoin mining equipment? Or are you comparing dedicate mining equipment to all consumer technology combined?

Of course. The example wasnt about AirPods but the whole catalogue of consumer electronics bought every year, for sole reason of owning newer version as a social status. Iphones pods pads etc etc.

I have an old refurbished iPhone SE, and my AirPods don’t have long battery life but it’s still usable years later and third parties will put in a new battery.

Lots of people use Apple products because they have a long life, not everyone is jumping to the latest and greatest.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#60

Post by lottin »

988747 wrote: post #8
Tepix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you do something like "proof of useful work" as discussed in https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/203.pdf

isn't that somewhat against the whole idea of PoW? It is supposed to make cheating expensive, because you have to waste a lot of computing power to do it. If that power is not wasted, but instead used for something useful (outside of crypto transaction verification) work that can be sold for money, then cheating becomes profitable again.

Not really... cheating is always profitable, regardless of how expensive winning a block is, since the cheater can double spend any amount they want.
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