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It uses vastly more energy than payment processors that have vastly more throughput. And the ideal miner that finds a valuable use for the waste heat is a fanta

by cwyers 11y ago

It uses vastly more energy than payment processors that have vastly more throughput. And the ideal miner that finds a valuable use for the waste heat is a fantasy, and it's an incredibly inefficient way of generating that heat.

acdha 11y ago
Also we have no reason to believe that the trend will change away from advances in hardware efficiency just buying more of them - the ratchet mechanism doesn't reward stable capacity.
saalweachter 11y ago
I think at the end of the day there's an important axiomatic difference. Are you willing to trust any central authority? Maybe a government, maybe a set of independent businesses you can chose among, maybe a specifically selected advisory committee, one really cool dude. Just anything. If you are, then burning coal and compute cycles is just insane and wasteful. If you aren't, then you might be willing to admit that from some angles it is an inelegant solution, but it is a solution. Taking Bitcoin on its own terms, as a solution to a problem you may not personally care about, the wastefulness of the process isn't really a problem. If anything, I agree with what someone else said down thread -- it would be better if mining for Bitcoin wasn't profitable, and it was a lottery people played at a loss (wasting even more resources!). That would discourage the centralization of mining power. IMO the biggest problem Bitcoin faces is that it put voting power in the hands of miners instead of users, and then encouraged those miners to coalesce into a relatively small coalition of big-money players.
- cwyers 11y ago
  The energy waste of Bitcoin isn't a function of its decentralized nature, it's evidence that the decentralized nature is being subverted. A truly decentralized Bitcoin wouldn't have giant mining rigs that have to figure out what to do with all the waste heat, it'd be using spare CPU cycles that everyone has and the energy impact would be minimal. The energy waste comes from people using ASICs devoted to nothing but Bitcoin mining. And those same people, according to the article being discussed, are using their outsized impact to help steer the direction Bitcoin is headed in to the detriment of the majority of Bitcoin users. Bitcoin's ethos of "one CPU, one vote" was subverted as soon as people using dedicated Bitcoin mining hardware could have more votes than all the CPUs in the ecosystem put together.
  - barkingcat 11y ago
    In support of your points, I think it's worth remembering those "life in a bitcoin mine" videos that some journalists groups did http://media.coindesk.com/2014/09/20140729120509_0210.jpg http://media.coindesk.com/2014/09/20140729120509_0210.jpg The waste heat from these operations are not being reused. The energy most likely came from a coal fired power plant, or from a nuclear reactor.

by cwyers 11y ago

acdha 11y ago

Also we have no reason to believe that the trend will change away from advances in hardware efficiency just buying more of them - the ratchet mechanism doesn't reward stable capacity.

saalweachter 11y ago

I think at the end of the day there's an important axiomatic difference. Are you willing to trust any central authority? Maybe a government, maybe a set of independent businesses you can chose among, maybe a specifically selected advisory committee, one really cool dude. Just anything. If you are, then burning coal and compute cycles is just insane and wasteful. If you aren't, then you might be willing to admit that from some angles it is an inelegant solution, but it is a solution. Taking Bitcoin on its own terms, as a solution to a problem you may not personally care about, the wastefulness of the process isn't really a problem. If anything, I agree with what someone else said down thread -- it would be better if mining for Bitcoin wasn't profitable, and it was a lottery people played at a loss (wasting even more resources!). That would discourage the centralization of mining power. IMO the biggest problem Bitcoin faces is that it put voting power in the hands of miners instead of users, and then encouraged those miners to coalesce into a relatively small coalition of big-money players.

cwyers 11y ago
The energy waste of Bitcoin isn't a function of its decentralized nature, it's evidence that the decentralized nature is being subverted. A truly decentralized Bitcoin wouldn't have giant mining rigs that have to figure out what to do with all the waste heat, it'd be using spare CPU cycles that everyone has and the energy impact would be minimal. The energy waste comes from people using ASICs devoted to nothing but Bitcoin mining. And those same people, according to the article being discussed, are using their outsized impact to help steer the direction Bitcoin is headed in to the detriment of the majority of Bitcoin users. Bitcoin's ethos of "one CPU, one vote" was subverted as soon as people using dedicated Bitcoin mining hardware could have more votes than all the CPUs in the ecosystem put together.
- barkingcat 11y ago
  In support of your points, I think it's worth remembering those "life in a bitcoin mine" videos that some journalists groups did http://media.coindesk.com/2014/09/20140729120509_0210.jpg http://media.coindesk.com/2014/09/20140729120509_0210.jpg The waste heat from these operations are not being reused. The energy most likely came from a coal fired power plant, or from a nuclear reactor.