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Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

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Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#61

Post by scientismer »

dehrmann wrote: post #59
scientismer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I forgot about the money printing, which may or may not stop after Covid. But I think people buy BTC as an alternativ to gold, not because of some banking narrative. The question is still what would be actually good investments. Maybe everything will crash when the money printing stops, but then some things will crash harder than others. Gold will probably remain gold.

> people buy BTC as an alternative to gold That's a reasonable premise, but the price of gold is flat YoY. Gold actually peaked in Aug. 2020. You'd think that at least some of the bitcoin interest would have gone to gold, but it hasn't. Maybe people are selling gold to buy bitcoin, but again, they don't act similarly. Bitcoin is a speculative asset that has so far gone to the moon. Gold has maintained its value for c…

I think you are right, the "small fish" are buying Bitcoin hoping for speculative gains, but also big fish are buying it to hedge against inflation. I don't think Tesla bought Bitcoin speculating on big price rises, for example.

It also seems true that hedging against inflation (and socialism and so on) would also be expected to rise the price of gold - but a peak in August 2020 seems consistent with the hedging theory. Also, Bitcoin is easier to smuggle across borders than gold. Maybe it really is taking over. Or maybe the big fish already have so much gold that they want to diversify a bit.

AAPL actually produces stuff, but it probably isn't completely risk free, either? People could become too poor to afford their asking prices, and while it may not crash to zero, it could crash enough to hurt (given that it probably is also quite expensive atm).

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#62

Post by xiphias2 »

losteric wrote: post #25
wqsz7xn wrote: post #11

I feel like it's really easy to pin bitcoin on its energy usage just because it's so easily measurable. Is there any research that compares a traditional banking platform in terms of W/tx in comparison to bitcoin?

Not bank transfers, but https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption says > 778,988 - The number of VISA transactions that could be powered by the energy consumed for a single Bitcoin transaction on average (1157.81 kWh). Obviously bank transactions would also come out way ahead, those are essentially a DB update built on trust and for speed, whereas proof-of-work is severely inefficient by design.

VISA is a credit based system, Bitcoin transation is counterparty free. Transferring gold between countries would be a much more interesting comparision, as gold is the main competitor for Bitcoin.

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#63

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

barbegal wrote: post #28

This articles makes absolutely no sense. It uses market capitalisation of Apple and bitcoin to compare the CO2 emissions of an iPhone and a bitcoin transaction which is clearly nonsense. You could calculate the rough CO2 emissions of a 1 BTC transaction by dividing annual estimated CO2 emissions by bitcoin miners (35 million tonnes) by the number of annual transactions (100 million) which equates to about 350kg of CO…

Your calculation is invalid too.

Mining energy is not just used to process a transaction. Miners really do it to generate more BTC. It is the energy of the whole network. You're not including all related activities like the energy used in Apples banking and advertising, flying their employees around etc

Less BTC is generated over time, eventually none at all. The energy usage has no relation to actually performing a transaction. All of the 'BTC energy usage' calculations that talk about future climate change estimations and come up with 'per transaction' values are completely invalid.

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#64

Post by dehrmann »

scientismer wrote: post #61
dehrmann wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people buy BTC as an alternative to gold That's a reasonable premise, but the price of gold is flat YoY. Gold actually peaked in Aug. 2020. You'd think that at least some of the bitcoin interest would have gone to gold, but it hasn't. Maybe people are selling gold to buy bitcoin, but again, they don't act similarly. Bitcoin is a speculative asset that has so far gone to the moon. Gold has maintained its value for c…

I think you are right, the "small fish" are buying Bitcoin hoping for speculative gains, but also big fish are buying it to hedge against inflation. I don't think Tesla bought Bitcoin speculating on big price rises, for example. It also seems true that hedging against inflation (and socialism and so on) would also be expected to rise the price of gold - but a peak in August 2020 seems consistent with the hedging theo…

> Tesla

I don't disagree with your point, but I also wouldn't read much into what the 420-pedoguy-not-a-flamethrower-autopilot-manchild does.

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#65

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

Nursie wrote: post #20
wqsz7xn wrote: post #11

I feel like it's really easy to pin bitcoin on its energy usage just because it's so easily measurable. Is there any research that compares a traditional banking platform in terms of W/tx in comparison to bitcoin?

Thought experiment - Bitcoin supports fewer transactions than are needed for a mid-sized town, yet uses more power than most small countries. The upper limit of the amount of power a country’s financial system could use is the power footprint of that country. Likely the real usage is a small percentage of that, but that’s the upper limit. Now, given Bitcoin uses more power than countries of millions, but supports the…

Bitcoins are produced and secured through the mining process. It doesnt just process a transaction.

Dollars are backed and secured by the USA. How much energy does the USA military use?

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#67

Post by laurent92 »

ralfd wrote: post #50
laurent92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, 1 BTC is about 30 iPhones in money. It’s as interesting as saying a holiday consumes more than a bus trip: only CO2 / dollar is interesting. Or equivalent-CO2 “per service provided”. Because, with all the remaining dollars, you’re not going to destroy them, you’re going to consume other services/products, and if they are heavier in CO2 emissions per dollars in average, we’re not in a better position.

An iPhone is a physical thing. All kinds of different metals were mined/recycled and manufactured and shipped around the world. A bitcoin transaction is virtual. Some bits have to be flipped. That it is such an energy intensive and environmentally bad clusterfuck is a tragedy.

You don’t know, it may provide a service which is so intense that it’s worth it. The only way to know is to sell it. (If flipping bits weren’t so important, no-one would pay for datacenters).

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#68

Post by bingbong70 »

incrudible wrote: post #58
alwillis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. COVID-19 isn’t going to be “over” in any conventional sense any time soon. There are too many cases and too many variants. 2. With billions of institutional money and billions more waiting until ETFs in the US are approved, Bitcoin has something it didn’t have back in the day: a floor. The days of 80% drops are over.

> The days of 80% drops are over. The days of 80% "over night" drops may be over, but a bear market to wipe 80% off the market cap is not out of the question.

Already a few billionaires with algos that autobuy on 10-15% drops, this number will increase.

We aren't dealing with cs hobbyists, retail investors, and small nest eggs anymore, billionaire adoption is a game changer as Michael Saylor constantly points out...

Welcome to BTC cantillonaires with access to ~unlimited leverage courtesy of central banks.

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#69

Post by scientismer »

dehrmann wrote: post #64
scientismer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right, the "small fish" are buying Bitcoin hoping for speculative gains, but also big fish are buying it to hedge against inflation. I don't think Tesla bought Bitcoin speculating on big price rises, for example. It also seems true that hedging against inflation (and socialism and so on) would also be expected to rise the price of gold - but a peak in August 2020 seems consistent with the hedging theo…

> Tesla I don't disagree with your point, but I also wouldn't read much into what the 420-pedoguy-not-a-flamethrower-autopilot-manchild does.

I have to read up on Musk, didn't get any of those references :-) Anyway, just because he does some investment, doesn't mean it is a good one. It just shows that people do use BTC as a hedge.

Re: Buying a Bitcoin emits 195x as much CO₂ as buying an iPhone

#70

Post by vmception »

dehrmann wrote: post #59
scientismer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I forgot about the money printing, which may or may not stop after Covid. But I think people buy BTC as an alternativ to gold, not because of some banking narrative. The question is still what would be actually good investments. Maybe everything will crash when the money printing stops, but then some things will crash harder than others. Gold will probably remain gold.

> people buy BTC as an alternative to gold That's a reasonable premise, but the price of gold is flat YoY. Gold actually peaked in Aug. 2020. You'd think that at least some of the bitcoin interest would have gone to gold, but it hasn't. Maybe people are selling gold to buy bitcoin, but again, they don't act similarly. Bitcoin is a speculative asset that has so far gone to the moon. Gold has maintained its value for c…

> Gold actually peaked in Aug. 2020. You'd think that at least some of the bitcoin interest would have gone to gold, but it hasn't. Maybe people are selling gold to buy bitcoin, but again, they don't act similarly.

To add to this discussion, gold traded range bound for 20 years from 1980 to 2000, across many different economic realities, across several different Federal Reserve money supply increasing policies, in slow bleeding downtrends for half a decade or more, over and over again.

Gold as a perma-bull meme mostly culminates with a Gold ETF being approved. Which took a long time for the SEC to approve as well. The SEC just doesn't like commodity trusts split into shares, and they still don't like digital commodity trusts.

Gold perma-bull's latch on to that as price correction and returning to an arbitrary correlation, and that's what they will say 20 years from now too, even though the point wasn't to live your entire life not making any money. Pick your battles wisely. Are you part of the market that just wants exposure to the price of something to preserve your generational wealth, are you part of the market that wants something that's harder to seize, or are you part of the market that really is here to wait around for gold to rally to $5,000 two decades after your favorite youtuber said it was supposed to while its price ignored every macroeconomic reality that was supposed to be relevant.

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