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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#721

Post by abecedarius »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #520
dixego wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If maintaining the infrastructure for something a miniscule percentage of the world's population benefit from requires more energy than entire countries, surely it's worth interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs?

I'm not against bitcoin anymore than I am against unnecessary taxation but since bitcoin uses electricity at an insanely unnecessary quantity it should be taxed to the hilt to make up for increased environmental and infrastructure costs that are borne onto the 99.999% that do not participate in the scam.

Tax the externality of actually burning carbon. That's what we actually want to discourage, right?

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#722

Post by Mc_Big_G »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #520
dixego wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If maintaining the infrastructure for something a miniscule percentage of the world's population benefit from requires more energy than entire countries, surely it's worth interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs?

I'm not against bitcoin anymore than I am against unnecessary taxation but since bitcoin uses electricity at an insanely unnecessary quantity it should be taxed to the hilt to make up for increased environmental and infrastructure costs that are borne onto the 99.999% that do not participate in the scam.

How much does it cost to maintain the dollar? It's reserve status is propped up through trillions of dollars spent on the military industrial complex. How much energy does that waste? Massive taxation on Bitcoin, simply because it's energy usage is easily calculated, is questionable.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#723

Post by hacknat »

kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

Ethereum has already started transitioning to proof-of-stake which will significantly lower transaction costs in Ethereum.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#724

Post by arithmomachist »

kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

At the very least the proof of work ought to compute something useful.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#725

Post by xorcist »

dsco wrote: post #710
kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

There’s also proof of stake which requires a lot less energy. I think a lot of nuance is missed when discussing Bitcoin and its consensus mechanism as the only way of running a blockchain

So far no one has shown in practice how to run a decentralized proof of stake network.

How do you bootstrap a node in the face of conflicting history? How do you handle network partitions?

There are also open question surrounding security, prevent actors from colluding and so on. Most other blockchains do not even bother. At least the Ethereum people have the ambition to have something practical. Let's study the design when it you can make an eth transfer with it.

These discussions are like when in a discussion about uranuium waste management someone inevitably cries about how we should just scrap it and go with fusion energy instead.

Great idea, but let's have something working first.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#726

Post by titzer »

nickpp wrote: post #332

How much energy does watching porn consume? Playing video games? Watching a movie? Browsing Facebook? Using a ski chair? Visiting an amusement park? Going in vacation? Cooking your favorite type of food? Making ice cream? Driving to your friends? Listening to music? Concerts? Having a party? Banking? Casinos? As a species we use energy to meet our goals. Those goals may be situated anywhere in our hierarchy of needs.…

Like it or not, we live on the same planet. I have to smell your farts, and inhale your air pollution, and your CO2 output ruins my climate. You can use energy however you want when you pay for all the externalities yourself. Right now, you can't. In aggregate, this concept is known as social responsibility.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#727

Post by hacknat »

chaostheory wrote: post #716
dsco wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s also proof of stake which requires a lot less energy. I think a lot of nuance is missed when discussing Bitcoin and its consensus mechanism as the only way of running a blockchain

When is that rolling out for Ethereum

It's a really complicated transition, but it's already started. The estimate is that there's probably about $1.5B worth of transactions left to mine, but most transactions will be switching over to PoS in the coming year. No one knows for sure when the full transition will occur, it's more of a gradual phase-out.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#729

Post by freerobby »

dsco wrote: post #710
kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

There’s also proof of stake which requires a lot less energy. I think a lot of nuance is missed when discussing Bitcoin and its consensus mechanism as the only way of running a blockchain

Proof of space, too. See e.g. https://www.chia.net

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#730

Post by cryptica »

Bitcoin helps to solve a massive problem (centralization) so I wouldn't say it's not worth it. That said, there are many PoS and DPoS cryptocurrencies to choose from which use almost no electricity and would actually help to decentralize the economy much better than Bitcoin could on its own.

...We can't achieve decentralization by pooling all of the world's money on a single asset. That makes no sense.

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