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This Cryptocurrency Miner Says It Solved Bitcoin's Power Problem

12 points by thisisit 9y ago

MBCook 9y ago
So they’re lowering the pollution generated per-bitcoin by using a cleaner kind of electricity. But they’re still wasting GOBS of electricity in the process. The fix to the power problem would be to find a way to mine coins that uses less electricity, not ‘cleaner’ electricity. Of course as soon as you do that the usage won’t change. If you can mine x BTC/kWH then why would accept mining the same amount of bitcoin when for the same power you were already using you could mine more BTC?
- ojr 9y ago
  if it was possible to lose less electriciry the possible attack vectors are increased, with billions dollars in market cap, Bitcoin has been very secure at the protocol level, there is still the counterparty risk of exchanges
- deadmetheny 9y ago
  The problem is that energy waste isn't a problem to be solved in Bitcoin, it's a feature. So they're wasting energy to farm their Internet Fun Bucks using green power instead of fossil fuels, big deal. It's still energy wasted by design, which IMO is a big part of why Bitcoin is fucking stupid to begin with.
  - jsutton 9y ago
    It's not necessarily wasted energy if it's being used for something, and in Bitcoin's case it's being used to ensure the integrity of the network. Using green energy means that the byproduct of the energy used by the Bitcoin network is becomes safer for the environment, which is a great thing.
- gtrubetskoy 9y ago
  All the Googles, Facebooks, banks, government supercomputers, etc, are "wasting" a lot more energy than Bitcoin, as pretty much all of the energy in the world used for computing is dissipated as heat, including the computer on which I'm typing this. There is no "fix" here, as the strength of Bitcoin rests on the fundamental laws of nature whereby energy is required to process information. If you can invent an energy-less form of computing, more power to you, but I think the laws of thermodynamics preclude it from being possible. There is fundamentally no problem with a lot of energy, just look at the Sun, which "wastes" many orders of magnitude more energy than anything else humans have ever done. The problem is with our present ways of burning fossil fuels for energy, but then again, this has nothing to do with Bitcoin. PS: Don't actually look at the Sun.
  - imtringued 9y ago
    The difference is that even if we could capture the entire energy output of the sun bitcoin would still consume all of it.
- zamalek 9y ago
  Yes, Bitcoin is fucking greedy to begin with - especially considering the climate change problem. No, they are not wasting energy per-se in this instance: > The country has more than 2,000 small stations, many of them sitting idle because of low wholesale power prices and an absence of state support. That's not to mention the energy disposal problem that you have to deal with when the majority of your energy is renewable - POW is a good way to get rid of unused energy. Given that Bitcoin isn't going away, much like anything else where greed is concerned, this is a fantastic development. > find a way to mine coins that uses less electricity Attack SHA-256. That's the only option we have now. People sure-as-hell aren't going to move away from a tech which they believe is printing free money (I have some otherwise very smart friends who are mining coins with GPUs).
  - stepik777 9y ago
    > printing free money How are they free? You need equipment and electricity. > I have some otherwise very smart friends who are mining coins with GPUs Do you want to say that mining is stupid? If you mine the right coins and hold them long enough for price to increase you can make a lot of money.
    - zamalek 9y ago
      > How are they free? Exactly my point. > Do you want to say that mining is stupid? You could just buy them, which lowers your overall expenditure. Mining only amortizes a greater cost over time.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Attacking SHA-256 won't even do it. If you come up with a more efficient way to generate POW, then the difficulty will just increase until you reach equilibrium again.
    - vorotato 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure that's actually not what would happen. If you could attack sha-256, then you could forge all the transactions in the network and take all of the money. Then people would lose faith in the currency and do something else.
mikeash 9y ago
They're reducing pollution by using cleaner electricity... and this is news?! Hey Bloomberg, I signed up for 50% wind energy for my house, where's my article?
Aardwolf 9y ago
Why is the word "This" in front of the title? Wouldn't "Cryptocurrency Miner Says It Solved Bitcoin's Power Problem" be sufficient and sound more professional?
- skywhopper 9y ago
  It would be sufficient, and probably generates fewer clicks.
redtuesday 9y ago
As a layman: why don't things like GridCoin take off? Is it only mindshare/being late to the party/or something alike, or are there technical reasons for it? Bitcoin seems like a waste of energy in comparison (again, as a layman). Apparently enough to be in the top 65 of global power consumption for countries. [0][1] [0] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
fijter 9y ago
This isn't solving a problem, it's just making it a little less worse. Proof of Work by mining is just a plain stupid and wasteful idea. Ethereum is already switching to Proof of Stake which is slightly better (but it still gives the power to the biggest holders since you have more influence with more ETH, leading to more market manipulation by mining cartels). I think a non-blockchain, Tangle based concept like IOTA uses is a way better future, better in terms of scaling (the more users the better it gets), no transaction fees and, maybe best of all, no mining/miners.
- vorotato 9y ago
  Proof of work is better than proof of stake as proof of stake makes it easy for those with the most power to forge transactions rendering it useless to anyone who actually sought out cryptocurrency in the first place. Proof of work is just also very bad.
UncleEntity 9y ago
Now they just need to hook up some stirling engines to the cpus and pump the water back up to complete the cycle...

12 points by thisisit 9y ago

So they’re lowering the pollution generated per-bitcoin by using a cleaner kind of electricity. But they’re still wasting GOBS of electricity in the process. The fix to the power problem would be to find a way to mine coins that uses less electricity, not ‘cleaner’ electricity. Of course as soon as you do that the usage won’t change. If you can mine x BTC/kWH then why would accept mining the same amount of bitcoin when for the same power you were already using you could mine more BTC?

ojr 9y ago
if it was possible to lose less electriciry the possible attack vectors are increased, with billions dollars in market cap, Bitcoin has been very secure at the protocol level, there is still the counterparty risk of exchanges
deadmetheny 9y ago
The problem is that energy waste isn't a problem to be solved in Bitcoin, it's a feature. So they're wasting energy to farm their Internet Fun Bucks using green power instead of fossil fuels, big deal. It's still energy wasted by design, which IMO is a big part of why Bitcoin is fucking stupid to begin with.
- jsutton 9y ago
  It's not necessarily wasted energy if it's being used for something, and in Bitcoin's case it's being used to ensure the integrity of the network. Using green energy means that the byproduct of the energy used by the Bitcoin network is becomes safer for the environment, which is a great thing.
gtrubetskoy 9y ago
All the Googles, Facebooks, banks, government supercomputers, etc, are "wasting" a lot more energy than Bitcoin, as pretty much all of the energy in the world used for computing is dissipated as heat, including the computer on which I'm typing this. There is no "fix" here, as the strength of Bitcoin rests on the fundamental laws of nature whereby energy is required to process information. If you can invent an energy-less form of computing, more power to you, but I think the laws of thermodynamics preclude it from being possible. There is fundamentally no problem with a lot of energy, just look at the Sun, which "wastes" many orders of magnitude more energy than anything else humans have ever done. The problem is with our present ways of burning fossil fuels for energy, but then again, this has nothing to do with Bitcoin. PS: Don't actually look at the Sun.
- imtringued 9y ago
  The difference is that even if we could capture the entire energy output of the sun bitcoin would still consume all of it.
zamalek 9y ago
Yes, Bitcoin is fucking greedy to begin with - especially considering the climate change problem. No, they are not wasting energy per-se in this instance: > The country has more than 2,000 small stations, many of them sitting idle because of low wholesale power prices and an absence of state support. That's not to mention the energy disposal problem that you have to deal with when the majority of your energy is renewable - POW is a good way to get rid of unused energy. Given that Bitcoin isn't going away, much like anything else where greed is concerned, this is a fantastic development. > find a way to mine coins that uses less electricity Attack SHA-256. That's the only option we have now. People sure-as-hell aren't going to move away from a tech which they believe is printing free money (I have some otherwise very smart friends who are mining coins with GPUs).
- stepik777 9y ago
  > printing free money How are they free? You need equipment and electricity. > I have some otherwise very smart friends who are mining coins with GPUs Do you want to say that mining is stupid? If you mine the right coins and hold them long enough for price to increase you can make a lot of money.
  - zamalek 9y ago
    > How are they free? Exactly my point. > Do you want to say that mining is stupid? You could just buy them, which lowers your overall expenditure. Mining only amortizes a greater cost over time.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Attacking SHA-256 won't even do it. If you come up with a more efficient way to generate POW, then the difficulty will just increase until you reach equilibrium again.
  - vorotato 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's actually not what would happen. If you could attack sha-256, then you could forge all the transactions in the network and take all of the money. Then people would lose faith in the currency and do something else.

mikeash 9y ago

They're reducing pollution by using cleaner electricity... and this is news?! Hey Bloomberg, I signed up for 50% wind energy for my house, where's my article?

Aardwolf 9y ago

Why is the word "This" in front of the title? Wouldn't "Cryptocurrency Miner Says It Solved Bitcoin's Power Problem" be sufficient and sound more professional?

skywhopper 9y ago
It would be sufficient, and probably generates fewer clicks.

redtuesday 9y ago

As a layman: why don't things like GridCoin take off? Is it only mindshare/being late to the party/or something alike, or are there technical reasons for it? Bitcoin seems like a waste of energy in comparison (again, as a layman). Apparently enough to be in the top 65 of global power consumption for countries. [0][1] [0] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

fijter 9y ago

This isn't solving a problem, it's just making it a little less worse. Proof of Work by mining is just a plain stupid and wasteful idea. Ethereum is already switching to Proof of Stake which is slightly better (but it still gives the power to the biggest holders since you have more influence with more ETH, leading to more market manipulation by mining cartels). I think a non-blockchain, Tangle based concept like IOTA uses is a way better future, better in terms of scaling (the more users the better it gets), no transaction fees and, maybe best of all, no mining/miners.

vorotato 9y ago
Proof of work is better than proof of stake as proof of stake makes it easy for those with the most power to forge transactions rendering it useless to anyone who actually sought out cryptocurrency in the first place. Proof of work is just also very bad.

UncleEntity 9y ago

Now they just need to hook up some stirling engines to the cpus and pump the water back up to complete the cycle...